


stormy weather ahead

by itsxandy



Series: AceLaw Week 2021 [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29266026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsxandy/pseuds/itsxandy
Summary: Things go awry even before Law arrives at Marineford.ocean || rescue mission || Polar Tang & Moby Dick
Series: AceLaw Week 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149215
Comments: 20
Kudos: 27
Collections: AceLaw Week 2021





	stormy weather ahead

**Author's Note:**

> ...You may have noticed that this Ace/Law week fic is missing a certain someone in the character tags. So. The thing is. The story hit 22k, and I am very tired and late. I won't make be making this mistake again, and the rest of this story won't be nearly as long. I may one day go back and edit this, but that day is not today.
> 
> Creative liberties were taken regarding science and canon. Technically, they would be sailing against a tsunami, maybe reaching the source, and then sailing with it, but I also wanted to handwave how they’d managed to get there so fast, so let’s just say it worked like this. Also altered canon a bit. Misremembered Marineford and thought they deliberately cut the feed after Squard attacked Whitebeard, not realizing they never wanted anyone to see the accusation in the first place.

Law stared at the blank screen, expression frozen in a twisted smile. Unbelievable. The future of the world was balancing on a string, Whitebeard had been stabbed by one of his own men, and now they just so happened to lose reception.

“Is it true?”

“Whitebeard betrayed his own men for Ace?”

“Everyone knows Whitebeard’s loyal to his people.”

“Not as loyal as he is to Gold Roger’s brat.”

“I can’t believe he’d do that though,” someone protested, though judging from their tone, they really did believe it. Hundreds of people gathered around the screen to watch the execution, and not a single one of them possessed a working brain.

Shoulders shaking, Law gripped the hat with both hands and tugged it down over his eyes. The brim crumpled easily under his fingers, fur soft and pliable after years of wear. His breaths rattled in his chest, building up until they began to escape in the form of low, throaty laughter that unsettled everyone within hearing distance.

His crew shifted uneasily, unsure of who exactly in the crowd he was laughing at. In his tenure as captain of the Heart Pirates, they’d grown used to his laughter marking the start of a fight.

“What’s so funny?” Shachi demanded. He constantly glanced between Law and their surroundings, wondering just who Law was ready to mock, but the real mockery here wasn’t any of the gullible Sabaody citizens.

Law broke his grip on his hat and gestured for them to settle down. He was the one with the audacity to be surprised that the World Government was pulling the same bull they always did.

“Nothing’s funny,” he assured them. He wiped his face against his arm. Even if it weren’t for the humidity, Sabaody was a tropical island best and most succinctly described as stifling. Between the mangroves’ waxy leaves and the bubbles that were constantly forming underfoot, his clothes constantly clung to his skin. As uncomfortable as the heat probably was in a boiler suit, his crew, at least, didn’t have to deal with the feeling of constantly wet denim sticking to their calves. “Get the ship ready, Bepo.”

“We’re leaving?” the polar bear mink asked hesitantly. His ears flicked back and forth in a nervous manner that Law normally would’ve found almost endearing. “But what about the coating? The mechanic’s still working on it.”

“Get rid of him. I don’t care,” Law shrugged. They could deal with getting the ship coated later.

“Aye aye, captain,” he saluted. He still seemed a little anxious about leaving, even though Law thought he would’ve been the first to jump up at the order. With his thick fur and the sweltering heat, Bepo was probably the one suffering the most on this island. He turned to Jean Bart, the only crewmate who would show the otherwise shy navigator any semblance of deference. “Come with me.”

Jean Bart, to his credit, followed behind Bepo without question. It’s a habit Law hoped the former captain would grow out of in time. He didn’t steal a slave; he’d liberated a pirate. Law needed his crew to follow orders, but given how rambunctious the rest of them were by nature, they were going to walk all over this man.

For now, however, a bit of passive compliance couldn’t hurt, Law mulled as he picked up his sword and propped it on his shoulder. He headed towards the port himself at a more sedate pace while the rest of the crew followed behind, but Penguin jogged a few steps forward to walk by Law’s side.

“I know that look,” Penguin said. Law met his discerning expression head on, unafraid of his scrutiny. “We’re not going to like whatever it is you’re thinking, are we?”

“The only reason we even stayed in Sabaody was to watch the battle, and now the Marines have gone and cut the feed.”

“Doesn’t mean we have to leave right now, though. Not that I’m complaining about leaving this tropical hellhole, but—”

“We do if we’re going to make it before the battle is over,” Law interrupted.

Bubbles frothed and popped under Law’s heel as he trekked across the constantly damp grass, quiet but audible as his comment was met with dead silence. As gratifying as it was to have a World Noble get his face smashed in, Law and his constantly wet socks were not going to miss this island.

“ _Captain_.”

The single mournful word managed to carry the exasperation of the entire crew, a weight that was going to risk slowing them all down.

“Penguin,” he said, managing to keep a mostly straight face and patient tone. “We can’t rely on the World Government. If we want to know the true outcome of the battle, we have to see it for ourselves because whoever wins gets to decide what to tell the world. But if you’d prefer to be spoon fed propaganda, you can stay behind and watch the Marine’s broadcast. I won’t take it personally.”

“Sure, you won’t,” Shachi cut in with a scoff. “You are _testy_ today, captain. The heat getting to ya?”

“I’d be pretty grumpy too if I came to Sabaody wearing skinny jeans.”

“You know what might make you feel better? Going back to the amusement park!”

Law let them complain. He knew he wasn’t an easy man to sail under, prone to swings in mood and changes in plans. If a bit of cheek was all he had to endure in exchange for their loyalty, then so be it.

He tried to imagine what it would’ve been like to to serve under a captain as temperamental as himself. The only comparison he really had was Doflamingo, but Law had been a different person back then, mindlessly following any instruction he was given. Doflamingo never gave him an order he didn’t agree with because Law never cared about what he was doing or if what he was doing was going to get him killed.

The sass doesn’t last long. As willing as Law is to put up with it, he doesn’t engage with it either. The conversation eventually wanders away from him as the crew continues to banter among themselves.

At the edge of the mangrove, where the Polar Tang is docked, Bepo and Jean Bart are with the other half of the crew, loading up crates. In retrospect, even if Law hadn’t planned on attending Marineford, his decision to abruptly depart shouldn’t have come as a surprise. They should have been packed and prepared to leave on a moment’s notice.

“Jean Bart,” Law addressed as he boarded the ship. “I hope you have a solid grasp on the controls because I want you on the helm with Bepo.”

“And what’s our destination?” Jean Bart asked.

“Captain wants to test our luck at Marineford,” Penguin said.

Whether it was due to his quiet nature or his time as a slave to the World Nobles, Jean Bart reacted to the announcement with nothing more than a slightly raised brow. He’d joined the crew during their first battle, a skirmish against Marines that turned into a run-in with one of the government’s newly revealed Pacifistas.

During that same battle, four of the other pirate captains, all of whom reportedly stood on roughly equal footing as Law, had been overwhelmed in combat by a single Admiral. Now Law was leading them to Marineford, where there were three. If Jean Bart had any qualms about this crew, now would have been the time to show them.

“Hrm,” he said. His brow is twisted into a permanent scowl, but with some effort, he managed to push them together in thought. “We don’t know how long the battle will last. We should pack up and leave now if we’d like to arrive before it’s over.”

“And wouldn’t that be a pity,” Penguin sighed at Jean Bart’s retreating back as the man left to update Bepo on their course.

Law surveyed the deck and all its crates with disdain. Hauling supplies around was usually a task he delegated to the rest of his crew, on account of not wanting to do it and having the authority to pass the chore off onto others. With a sigh, he rested Kikoku on top of a particularly light but delicate crate of vials and other assorted glassware and began carrying it indoors.

His rare moment of manual labor didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the crew.

“Hey, captain! Why don’t you just, uh,” Shachi struck a pose as if he was losing his balance and wiggled his fingers, “Shamble everything in?”

“Are these too heavy for you?” Law asked.

“What? _No_.”

“Then straighten your back and get packing,” he ordered. “Your posture is awful.”

Shachi recoiled as if he’d been physically attacked by the absolute hypocrisy of the statement, and Law took the opportunity to leave while he was still. Using his Devil Fruit ability would speed things up immensely, but he wasn’t going to waste his energy at a time like this.

Law only made it a few steps before he found himself stopping as Kikoku slid across the lid of the crate. He stared at the sword as it shifted slightly side to side and then glanced back at his crew, who weren’t complaining but often found themselves stopping to reorient themselves with each wave that rocked the Polar Tang.

Huh.

The ocean seemed rougher than it had ever been since they’d arrived on Sabaody. Even Penguin and Shachi, who had been a part of Law’s journey from the very first voyage, appeared to be making conscious efforts to keep their balance, though neither seemed to give the weather much notice.

“You got that, Captain?” Penguin asked, interrupting Law’s quiet observations. He nodded towards the crate and the sword that was failing to rest on top of it.

“I’m fine,” Law answered. “Hand the sails and clear the deck. We’ll approach Marineford from below.”

His crew reacted quickly to change in commands, immediately furling the sails—an automated task made easy with the latest upgrades to their mast. There was a palpable energy in the air as they worked. Their eagerness to get a move on combined with the understandable apprehension about sailing to Marineford made for an almost electric mood. It didn’t take long for the crew to finish hauling everything in, saving time as they dropped everything off just inside the entrance of the Polar Tang.

“You seem pretty lively today, Captain,” Penguin commented as he staggered in with one of the last boxes. He teetered for a moment as he struggled to keep his balance as the Polar Tang lurched on the waves.

“This is the biggest spectacle in the last decade,” Law said. “Show some excitement.”

“We just had an admiral come and singlehandedly arrest seven hundred people,” Penguin said flatly, as if that had anything to do with their own crew.

“But not us. Maybe we should punch a Celestial Dragon. For good luck.”

“Let’s _go_ ,” Penguin said, quickly changing his tune. Law managed to get a smile out of him, but the fact that he wasn’t sure if Law was joking or not added just a touch of urgency to his tone.

“Finish organizing this and get everything where it needs to go,” Law said. For a moment, he considered telling them to just leave the medical equipment in the infirmary for him to put away later, but he’d taught them enough by now that they should know where everything goes. As he weaved between his crew and stepped over various crates, he called back, “And check the door before we dive. We don’t need a repeat of what happened at Vilagre.”

The entire crew protested loudly behind him, as if something like that could never happen again, but it only took one single moment of carelessness for his crew to nearly drown in their own ship like last time. He couldn’t imagine dying in a place so insignificant, the Heart Pirates disappearing mid-voyage into the ocean, never to be heard of again. Going quietly didn’t suit him.

He could still hear them bickering loudly in the hall as he entered the control room where Bepo and Jean Bart were hovering over the table.

“We’re ready to go,” Law said.

Bepo looked at him, his tiny ears pressed back against his head and let out a loud whine that rang through the room.

“I don’t have a course ready,” Bepo said nervously. He looked up at Law and let out a quiet whine, ears pressed against the back of his head. “I thought we were going to Fishman Island!”

He held up various sea charts to Law’s face as proof that he hadn’t been trying to deliberately waste their time. Even working at his own pace, Bepo’s penmanship always left something to be desired, and now that they had at the last minute changed destinations, the charts were covered in newer, frantic scrawls.

Law pushed the sea charts out of his face.

“It doesn’t matter. We know where Marineford is. We’ll be traveling beneath the surface.”

“But we don’t know the currents in these parts,” Bepo said. “If we end up traveling against the current, we’ll lose speed.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. We’ll adjust along the way if we need to,” Law said, though he had a feeling it wouldn’t be necessary. It seemed too romantic to say he felt as if he were being pulled towards the fight, but Law couldn’t help but wonder if fate was lining itself up for him once again. “Actually, don’t even bother plotting the course to Marineford. Start looking for the next island. We’ll get there if we get there, but if something goes wrong, I’d like to have an exit plan.”

“Yes, Captain!” Bepo said, retreating back to his workspace.

With his navigator’s concerns appeased, Law approached Jean Bart at the ship’s steering wheel. “You’ve got a handle on this?”

“The controls are remarkably similar to that of a ship,” he said thoughtfully. Even though the wheel looked comically small in his hands, he seemed to be handling it deftly enough.

“It was easier that way,” Law said. “Visibility won’t be great once we dive. You can see through the windows, but they’re more for psychological comfort. For actual maneuvering, everything you’ll need is on the dashboard with the exception of information from our sonar station. They’ll keep you updated via Den Den Mushi.”

“I remember,” Jean Bart said, and despite the many little differences between Polar Tang and other ships, he seemed to handle the helm well enough.

“Good.” The Baby Den Den Mushi they kept by the wheel was asleep, so he gave it a quick tap to rouse it and then picked it up to have something to do with his hands as he paced the control room. “Confirm if we’re rigged to dive,” he spoke into its face as it blinked groggily.

As various crewmates chimed in with their various updates, Jean Bart quietly spoke up, “You made Bepo nervous.”

“He’s always nervous,” Law said. He glanced at the man, skeptical of his concern and defensive of his navigator. “But in a pinch, he always gets the job done.”

Jean Bart had an inscrutable look on his face and acknowledged Law’s answer with nothing more than pause and a curt nod. It was impossible to tell what the former slave was thinking, but Law was left with the distinct feeling he’d given the wrong answer to a question that hadn’t been asked.

“ _All clear and ready to go_ ,” Penguin said over the baby snail.

“Ready to dive,” Law relayed to Jean Bart. “Release the air from the ballast tanks. Once we hit the desired depth, level us out, and we’ll continue on our way.”

“How far beneath the surface should we go?” Jean Bart asked.

“Hm… we’ll figure it out when we get there.”

The Polar Tang reared up one more time before diving into the rocky waves. The waterline began to rise, swallowing all ambient sounds as they dove down, but the peace that usually followed didn’t come.

It wasn’t the smoothest of descents. Law stood by the window, one hand braced against the wall as he rocked just slightly with the ship. He’d spent half his life on the sea learning to live with its unpredictable nature. Most of his crew didn’t share that same advantage, and the Polar Tang’s rough, lurching dips had them all shouting their advice over the Den Den Mushi network.

At least they were being supportive.

However, the crew’s talking over each other wasn’t helping anyone, and even though Jean Bart didn’t seem the type to get flustered easily, Law shoved his hand down on the transponder snail, smothering their voices.

“Ignore them,” Law said. “Next time, activate the ballast vents at the same time so the hatches are level with one another.”

“Do I reactivate them now?”

Law leaned down to get a better look at the ocean above them. The sun rippled across the distant surface, its light still managing to penetrate the water.

“Keep going.”

“Visibility’s dropping fast,” Jean Bart said, squinting out the window.

“It’s fine. You don’t need to see,” Law reminded him and, feeling some mercy, he added, “We’ll go down to a hundred meters and see how we feel there.”

There was still some light at that level. Enough that the natural claustrophobia might be manageable. The current continued to churn around the Polar Tang, practically dragging it forward. Law could feel his feet threatening to leave the ground at the peak of every underwater wave, which meant the rest of his crew must have been absolutely suffering.

“Anyone having fun yet?” he asked via the Den Den Mushi.

“Let me pilot the Tang!” Shachi shouted, first to complain as always. Alone in his cramped department, he must’ve been literally bouncing off walls.

“Captain, are you in the control room with Jean Bart? Is he doing everything right?”

“It’s so bumpy, and our chairs are very hard. We’ve taken some severe blunt force trauma to the ass, sir.”

“Please consider: cushions.”

“Sorry,” Law addressed them all unapologetically. “Water conditions today are going to be rough.”

“But the weather forecast predicted calm skies and clear weather,” Shachi said. “Is this just what the currents are like here?”

“Probably not. I suspect the forecast just never took Whitebeard into account,” Law said. His theory was met with dead silence, followed by a few murmurs, and finally Shachi faintly mumbling ‘ _hold on_ ’.

Within moments, he heard Shachi stomping through the hallways and kicking the door behind Law open.

“You couldn’t have told us that _Whitebeard can control the sea_?” he demanded, pale-faced and sweating as he made a beeline for Law, but the Polar Tang suddenly pitched forward, sending Shachi into a mad dash past him.

“It’s just a theory,” Law said without missing a beat, as if his senior crewmate hadn’t just crashed into a wall, “but you saw the same as me: Whitebeard opened the attack on Marineford by throwing a tsunami at them. I suspect we’re riding the currents he created. We’re making _great_ time, at least.”

“Are you implying that the reason we’re being bounced off walls is because we’re _sailing through a tsunami_?” Shachi said shrilly as he pushed himself up against the wall and then nearly fell forward again as the Polar Tang abruptly began to right itself. “Jean Bart! Give me the controls!”

“Jean Bart. Stay where you are,” Law ordered before Shachi could take over for him.

“Tell me you’re kidding,” Shachi said, now rounding on Law.

“No,” he said. “Piloting may be technically challenging in these conditions but it’s conceptually easier to pick up.”

“This is Jean Bart’s first time crossing the sea with us! We’ve got plenty of more experienced helmsmen on the crew.”

“They’re also more experienced at other duties—”

“Half of us are on standby! What’s so important about our posts if we’re only here to watch... from a distance...?” Shachi asked, but his voice began to trail off towards the end. His frustration faded away, leaving behind a quiet, confused dread. “ _Captain_. We _are_ only here to watch, right?”

“You never know when a torpedo might come in handy,” he answered lightly. “You can stay here for a while and supervise Jean Bart if you’d like, but I’ll need you back at your station once we get to Marineford.”

“Please, at least put Bepo on.”

“Nah.”

“I don’t know how much it means in wake of everything we’ve learned,” Jean Bart said, “but I was an accomplished helmsman for my own crew. And the controls are similar, even if I have to learn to read the dashboard more quickly.”

“See?” Law gestured at the man. “He mostly knows what he’s doing. Have a little faith in your crewmates.”

“Don’t you ‘have a little faith in your crewmates’ me like scaring us shitless us isn’t your favorite pastime! Would it kill you to let us know what’s going on in that head of yours just once?”

“I could, but I’d rather not damage your trust in me.”

Shachi’s face scrunched as he glared at Law but he eventually slumped down into a seat next to Bepo. He nearly missed and fell out of the seat, but Shachi managed to overcome the turbulence and settle down.

“I know you’re probably joking, but you’re also an ass and I can’t be sure if you’re just messing with me or not,” Shachi said, his face scrunching up as he glared at Law.

“Consider it a mental exercise,” Law said because there was no reason Shachi couldn’t consider all of the options true. He was an ass, he was messing with Shachi, and the crew wouldn’t appreciate Law’s approach to life if they understood just how little planning went into it.

“Please, you’re already exhausting enough,” Shachi said dramatically.

Law turned his attention to Jean Bart, who was watching the exchange with the barest hint of an expression. “Do you have something to say?” he asked.

Judging from the long silence, he probably did, but eventually Jean Bart settled on a very neutral, “Just looking.”

“Try to look at the dashboard more. How far down are we?” Law asked, but as Jean Bart looked down and then met his eyes once again, he knew the answer was ‘too deep’.

“I’ll raise us up again,” he said.

“Don’t bother,” Law said. Judging from the time they’d spent descending, they hadn’t overshot the intended depth by much. “I suggested a hundred meters for your benefit. The Polar Tang can handle more. Just make sure you’re in regular contact with the guys in sonar. We don’t know how shallow the water will get once we hit Marineford.”

Jean Bart grunted in acknowledgement as he focused on his task. The man dwarfed the steering wheel but handled it deftly enough. If he kept Jean Bart on as their main helmsman, they’d have to replace the wheel with something more appropriate for his size. It at least slotted in nicely with his vague plans to rearrange the layout of the control rooms. The Hearts were like pack animals. As rowdy as they got when they were together, they were worse apart.

If he consolidated their stations, he could at least free up room for a little more living space and give Jean Bart a place to sleep that wasn’t on the floor. He’d been putting off renovations to the Polar Tang, unsure of what directions his crew would grow, but now that they’d recruited Jean Bart, part of that answer was now apparently ‘taller’. The man had yet to complain about anything, despite the fact that the Polar Tang so far had no accommodations for a man his size. Just to shower, the crew had come up with the rather inelegant solution of hosing him off above deck.

“Hah, looks like we’ve got another stowaway,” Penguin said, leaning over to check out one of the windows. It wasn’t uncommon for the Polar Tang to find itself carrying an extra passenger or two. Starfish and various cephalopods would often find themselves on the deck, and there were various nooks that offered a refuge against the turbulent flow of water.

There was no such shelter from the currents on the front of the Polar Tang. Law approached the window to inspect whatever it was creeping across against the glass. The half-finished coating they’d received at Sabaody made it all the more difficult to distinguish, distorting its edges. The bubbles that swelled and popped around the object made for an unusual outline, however.

Law frowned.

“Shachi. Turn on the headlights.”

“It won’t help us see, would it?” Shachi asked.

“Humor me.”

Shachi let the momentum of the Polar Tang’s seesawing help lift him back up to his feet, and positioned himself by Jean Bart’s side to flip on the bioluminescent headlights. It didn’t help much, but it illuminated the silhouette of the—

“ _Holy shit_!” Shachi screamed.

A bloated face was pressed up against the window, skin pale where the washed out yellow light fell on it. Up close, Law could see the empty, bloodshot eyes and broken teeth, twisted in a deathly grimace.

“Should we slow down?” Shachi asked, panic filling his voice. “Do we stop? Do we let him in?”

 _Why_ , Law almost asked, but as he blinked and he realized the man wasn’t quite as dead and bloated as he first appeared. The man’s cheeks were puffed up and ruddy, and his lips pressed shut. A steady stream of air was quickly escaping the sides of his mouth in bubbles. The eyes weren’t dull and lifeless but rather wide and full of mindless terror.

Despite the overwhelming currents that kept him plastered to the front of their submarine, he managed to raise a fist and drop it on the window. It was a useless endeavor. The Polar Tang’s hull was designed to endure the crushing pressure of the sea. There was no way the man was going to break through with willpower alone.

Law snatched up one of Bepo’s crumpled up sea charts from the table.

“Don’t slow down. Maintain the exact same speed,” Law ordered, mentally calculating the speed they were moving at and trying to account for the rough teeter-tottering motion of the Polar Tang. He opened a Room ahead of the Polar Tang with a quiet hissed word, As they passed through the blue film and it began clipping through the walls, he swapped the parchment in his palm for the man outside.

He shifted his grip, fingers fisting around wet cloth, to hold the man upright by his collar as he hacked and heaved. It took Law longer than he would’ve liked to admit to recognize the man. His brown hair was plastered over his eyes, and he was missing his hat, but the massive brush should have been a dead giveaway.

“Colon, isn’t it?”

“It’s ...Clione!” the coating mechanic spat between several hacking coughs.

“What are you doing on our ship?” Law demanded, giving the man a little shake to help clear his throat.

“What—what am _I_ doing?” Clione shouted. “What are _you_ doing? Your coating was two days from done, and you just take off?”

“What, you chased us down just to finish the coating?”

“Chase you? I was under your ship! Doing my _fucking job!_ You’re lucky I had a bubble, you morons nearly killed me!”

If they’d been luckier, they would’ve lost this man to the sea, and Law wouldn’t be having this problem. Law adjusted his hat, hand covering his face as he tried to grasp the situation.

“Did I forget to tell you to get rid of the coating mechanic?” Law asked Bepo with a forced smile, though they both knew full well that he hadn’t.

“No…” Bepo said in a subdued voice, as if Law had caught him in the walk-in freezer again. He kept shifting his gaze, but Law refused to be ignored, shifting left and right. Wherever his navigator tried to look, Law was there to look him in the eye.

“Did I forget when you told me you didn’t find him? _Bepo_?” Law asked, and when Bepo tried to hide behind his sea charts, looking up at him with guilty puppy dog eyes, Law pushed the sea charts out of the way. “Acting cute isn’t going to you out of this!”

His navigator shrank under Law’s gaze and decided Law’s shoes were more interesting to look at.

“Bepo and I assumed he took an early day to watch the Marineford broadcast in town,” Jean Bart spoke up. “But we did look for him, up until the point you told us we were to head out, and then it slipped our minds.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable mistake, Law knew. Just an unfortunate one.

“I guess there’s nothing to be done about it at this point,” Law said, accepting the situation for what it was.

“What do you mean there’s nothing to do about it? Turn this ship around and take me back to Sabaody!”

“Sorry,” Law said unrepentantly. “Not happening.”

“This is—this is a kidnapping! You can’t just kidnap me!”

“I’m a pirate. I can kidnap anyone I want,” Law said huffily. “What I can’t do is turn back.”

“Well, why _not_?”

“It’s a waste of my time. We’ll get you your money and drop you off when we’re not on a deadline.”

“Oh, sorry! Is this an _inconvenient time for you_?” Clione snapped at him. Outraged, he tried to get up in Law’s face, but the lurching of the ship brought him uncomfortably close, and Law shoved a hand in his face to push him back.

“Yes, it _is_. You should sit back and relax, because you really don’t have a choice,” he said. It might have been his crew’s fault that the man was taken away from his home, but Law was a fair man only so long as it was convenient.

“We barely left Sabaody, and it’s a day and a half away minimum to get to the next island! How much of a detour would it be to take me back?” he said.

“Considering the speed of the tsunami drawing us to Marineford and the time it would take for us to go against the current? Quite a while.”

“ _M-Marineford_?” Clione stuttered out.

“Couldn’t break it to him easier, Captain?” Shachi asked.

“Better to just break it to him here than once we’re actually there,” Law said, because if Clione was going to make an issue of it, they might as well get it all out now. He turned back to deal with Clione, who unsurprisingly was not taking the news well, glancing between each person in the control room with increasingly twitchy eyes. “I should warn you, this ship isn’t outfitted for holding prisoners but we can make do. If you have any further objections, you’ll find the rest of your stay here very unaccommodating.”

“ _Any further objections_? What the hell do you plan to do at Marineford?”

“Sightsee,” Law said immediately, not letting the question hang long in the air.

It’s a question he knows the rest of his crew desires to know the answer to as well, but he doesn’t have one that he could give them. There was no concrete reasoning he could give them that they would understand. How could he explain that he was looking for something that could only be explained by faith?

His orders, while often complained about, were rarely challenged—a trait among his crew that Law greatly benefited from.

Clione, on the other hand, refused to back down and leave it alone. “And everyone here is on board with this?”

“Captain’s orders. He’s gotten us this far down the Grand Line,” Shachi said, and then he gave Clione a sheepish grin. “Some of us a little more willingly than others. We’ll take you back when this is all over, okay?”

“No, not okay!” he said, now turning on Shachi and brandishing his massive brush towards like a weapon.

“Hey, relax,” Shachi said. “We’re just here to watch a trainwreck. We’re not going to get caught up in it or anything...”

Shachi raised his hands as he approached, trying his best to deescalate the situation. It wasn’t the role he was used to taking for the crew, and for his efforts, Clione drew his brush back and smashed it across Shachi’s face, knocking him down.

“We are in! A _tsunami_! Headed for! _Marineford_!” Clione shouted down at him as he swung his brush wildly. None of the latter swings struck Shachi, but as it whipped through the air, bubbles began to form and encase him. “You’re already caught up in something!”

“Hey!” Shachi shouted, though his voice was beginning to grow muffled as the bubbles started clinging to him. “Knock it off!”

“We’re not having this,” Law said. He tossed the transponder snail in his hand to the side, voices on the other end shouting as the crew demanded to know what was going on. Freeing Kikoku from her sheath, he slashed Clione across the back and then brought the sword around in an arc to catch the back of his calves for good measure.

The man went down with a startled scream that went ignored as Law sliced at the bubbles encasing his crewmate.

“That was close,” Shachi said, his face a little pale. He didn’t look any worse for wear, just a little shaken, and Law held out a hand to help him back up to his feet.

“Hardly. The bubbles don’t seem all that dangerous,” Law said.

“I meant your sword. It was very close to my everything,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Penguin shouted through the transponder snail.

“I think you heard the gist of it. He decided to attack us, so I cut him down,” Law said. If the Polar Tang hadn’t been moving so quickly underwater, he probably could’ve used his abilities to disable him painlessly. It just wasn’t his day.

“You bastard!” Clione shouted, struggling to get back up to his feet.

“You started it,” Law said. He grabbed Clione by the back of his bloodied shirt and dragged him the rest of the way up. Even without his Devil Fruit powers, Law was particularly practiced at delivering disabling wounds. The man wouldn’t be standing on his own for the remainder of this trip.

“... _You guys_ started this!”

“What are you going to do with him?” Penguin asked.

“Throw him back into the ocean,” Shachi suggested, rubbing his cheek where he’d been hit.

“Well,” Law said, locking eyes with Clione. “I said we didn’t have a brig. I’ll throw him in the walk-in. If he doesn’t die by the time we’re done at Marineford, we’ll drop him off at the next island.”

The declaration was met with silence. Even Shachi looked a bit squeamish at that, but Law paid it no mind. Technically, it was nicer than drowning.

“What’s the walk-in?” Jean Bart asked.

“The freezer,” Law answered as he dragged Clione out of the room. The man’s legs flailed uselessly, leaving a bloodied trail behind them. “Somebody get a towel. Floor’s wet.”

“It’s, uh… it’s not just a freezer,” Law heard Shachi begin to explain as he left the room.

“Ow ow ow…!” Clione said. “You could at least be gentler after kidnapping me and attacking me with a sword!”

“Defending my crewmate with a sword,” Law corrected. “Maybe I should’ve told you that I won’t condone violence towards my subordinates, but in my defense, I didn’t know you were an idiot.”

“Maybe I should’ve hit you first, then!” he snarled.

“Also a terrible decision, but targeting the armed captain _would_ have been a smarter move than turning your back to him, yes,” Law agreed. “There is no scenario in which you can wrest control of my ship.”

“Why do you even need to go to Marineford anyway? If you get involved, there is no scenario in which some greenhorn pirate like you even survives.”

“We’ll see about that,” Law said.

As they reached the kitchen, Law could feel the man sag in his grip.

“Aw, _shit_ , you’re actually putting me in the freezer,” he muttered.

“Surprise. It’s the only place with a lock.”

“That’s dumb. What about your valuables?”

“Our ship is incredibly difficult for enemies to board. I’m sure you could imagine what would happen to someone if they tried. As for those aboard this ship, I trust my crew not to overstep their boundaries,” Law said. He looked over his shoulder at the sound of feet pounding against the floor. “Most of them.”

He opened the latch and threw Clione in.

“Ow! Hey, wait, are the lights gonna stay on?” he asked. “And… _why are there bodies in here?_ ”

Law shut the door, muffling all sounds from inside.

“Capta—!” Penguin shouted as he haphazardly skidded into the room. He slid across the floor, losing his balance and fell onto his back with a heavy thud.

“Penguin. Floor’s wet.”

Everything Penguin had been carrying was scattered on the floor around him. The towels and mops were reasonable enough, but Law raised an eyebrow at the sight of the first aid kit as he stopped it from sliding across the floor with his foot. He never got one for the ship before. The Polar Tang was its own first aid kit.

“Captain,” Penguin tried again once he recovered from his clumsiness and caught his breath from what must have been a mad dash through the ship to gather all the items. “He’s gonna freeze in there!”

Penguin started picking the towels up off the floor, but as he went for the first aid kit, Law refused to lift his foot. He slowly looked up to meet Law’s uncompromising eyes and his thin-lipped smile.

“So get him a blanket,” Law said, and then he kicked the kit back to Penguin. Given how fast they were moving, he had plenty of time to reach Marineford before the man froze to death.

“It’s _cruel_ ,” he insisted.

“He attacked first. How kind should I be to him?” Law scoffed. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall by the entrance of the walk-in. He was _known_ for his heartlessness, a reputation that benefited the crew greatly.

“From what I heard, it wasn’t much of a fight,” Penguin said. “You could afford to be kinder.”

Penguin had the nerve to look expectant about it, as if Law would cave in simply because he asked. Which was Law’s own fault, in retrospect, for giving in to these appeals so often in the past. Law’s weak sense of morality was only matched by his indifference towards anything that existed outside the realms of his goals. He must have been giving his crew too much leeway lately if they were starting to get the impression he’d follow their orders.

It was a thought that almost made Law genuinely smile, because no one in his crew would ever call him an easygoing captain. Given the circumstances, Penguin would just have to settle for the Law’s current smile, with a little more teeth and a little less sincerity.

“I’m not in a forgiving mood,” he said.

“You’ve let go people who’ve done worse,” Penguin pressed, apparently determined to forget the fact those decisions had all depended on Penguin’s persistence and Law’s capricious nature. And Law wasn’t feeling too inclined to listen today.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” he said. “I’ve indulged you.”

“There’s something _wrong_ with you,” Penguin blurted out. As he said those words, he froze, meeting Law’s now cold eyes as it seemed to hit him just how far he was pushing Law’s leniency.

“I’m letting you know now that you’re toeing the line,” Law said. “And we don’t have a brig.”

The threat of joining Clione shocked Penguin out of his state, but he didn’t back down. He pressed his lips together in a thin line as he chose his next words carefully.

“I’m not wrong. You’re off today, and you’ve never punished us for honesty,” he said, his words slow and even as he carefully continued to cross the line. “We never ask for much, Law. Please let him out.”

It was true. They really didn’t, which was why Law humored them so much in the first place. Sparing the odd enemy every now and then for petty transgressions didn’t make much difference to Law.

“And if I don’t?”

Penguin regarded the answer quietly, but didn’t spend much time considering his response.

“...Orders are orders,” Penguin said dutifully, not happy but willing to calmly accept Law’s decision.

Law uncrossed his arms and reached for the latch beside him, pulling it down and letting the door to the walk-in swing open.

The walls of the freezer were too thick for sound to carry through easily, but the moment the door opened, Clione’s bellowing voice filled the kitchen.

“—these bodies, you psycho!” the man finished, but he stopped dead at the sight of warm, corpseless freedom.

Law leaned over, his head peeking past the door frame, and the sight of him had the man actually scrambling backwards, deeper into the walk in.

“Is that really what you should be calling me after I _graciously_ decided to let you out?”

“You have bodies in here! Why do you have bodies in your freezer?” he shouted.

“We’re not cannibals, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Law said.

“...I mean, I _wasn’t_ , but I kind of am now!” he said shrilly.

Law sighed and entered the room. The man might have been terrified of the bodies, but he was even more terrified of Law, refusing to leave the hellish safety of the freezer. He crawled further away as Law approached, but there was no real way he could outpace him with his injuries, let alone in a confined space.

“I’m a doctor,” he explained, grabbing the man roughly by the back of his shirt again and towing him out. “My crew is learning.”

“What kind of doctor are you...?”

“A surgeon.”

“...You carry a sword and lock people in freezers!”

Ah. It was that kind of question.

“I’m the kind of doctor that carries a sword and doesn’t take violence towards his crew lying down,” he said. “You can thank Penguin here for my change of heart.”

“Yeah, hey, let’s get you patched up,” Penguin said, holding up his first aid kit. “Then you can hang with us in sonar.”

“No. He’s staying in control where I can keep an eye on him if he gets any funny ideas,” Law said. Speaking of funny ideas, Law had to ask. “And where’d you get that kit anyway?”

“Sabaody. Seemed like a reasonable purchase,” Penguin said.

“...We have a fully stocked medical suite equipped with some of the most advanced technology you’ll find on the Grand Line,” he said.

“Yeah, but it... doesn’t come in a cute little box?” Penguin said a little self-consciously.

“Just buy a box and throw stuff in it. The ship’s supplies are communal. You get what you need.”

“So you’re saying you _really_ don’t mind me going and taking whatever I want out of your operation rooms?” Penguin said.

The skepticism didn’t go amiss, and Law did have to take a moment to reconsider before answering. The Polar Tang wasn’t as large as some of the other ship’s they’d encountered on the Grand Line, and when they were submerged, there wasn’t much space to move about wherever they’d like. While Law did little to restrict their freedom to roam where he could, the medical suite was always treated as his domain.

“...You’ve all grown somewhat adept. Just run me through whatever it is you take,” Law said. Penguin genuinely looked a little touched at the sentiment, and Law couldn’t have that. “Besides, after almost ten years, I hope you know how to tell the difference between forceps and a pair of scissors.”

Penguin’s expression immediately soured. “You know, after ten years, I think it’s about time you let that go.”

“I don’t hold onto a lot of things, but when I do, I will hold onto them until the day I die,” Law said. “How much did you pay for this anyway? You better not have spent your entire day’s allowance for this.”

“It was just, like, ten berries,” Penguin said, looking self-conscious as he clutched the kit protectively.

“Just—It was _ten_ … I take it back, this is worse,” Law said. “Okay, open the kit. Let's see what your ten berry _general store first aid kit_ has to offer that the Tang can’t.”

“Are you going to get hung up on this too?”

“Yes,” Law said. “Clione, lay on your stomach.”

“You know,” Clione said uncertainly. “I’m not so sure about getting stitched up on a ride this bumpy—”

“Lay down or continue to bleed.”

Clione laid down, and Penguin opened the kit beside him, face red and slightly sweating.

“Horse hair,” Law said. He knelt down beside Penguin, resting his chin on his hand as his subordinate continued to sift through his purchase. “You brought _horse hair_ onto my ship.”

“Kay,” Penguin sighed. He was doing a reasonably good job ignoring Law’s mockery, but all the focus in the world wasn’t going him much good when trying to get the thread through the needle with the Polar Tang constantly moving and throwing him off. Finally, he glared at Law and held them out for him.

“Do you know how much I just spent on our suture threads?” Law continued, smiling at Penguin sweetly. He took over the task of stitching Clione, threading the needle in a single but careful attempt. “They’re silver-coated. _Silver_.”

“ _Leave me alone_.”

“No. This was the price you paid for a general store first aid kit: horse hair and mockery.”

“You know, our doctors on Sabaody actually coat the horse hair with our mangrove’s resin,” Clione said, his words slightly muffled by the towel he was laying on. “I hear it’s actually pretty effective.”

“Stay on your own island.”

“I… I _would_ have if you _left_ me!”

The process of stitching Clione’s wounds took a little longer than it normally would have. The unsteadiness of the ship doesn’t bother Law as much as the bickering between the three of them. Law couldn’t stop harping on Penguin for every cheap knickknack he found in the box, and as sheepish as he was over the whole thing, Penguin seemed to actually enjoy the abuse. The mild admonishments were, admittedly, much lighter to deal with than their previous conversation, and so Law enthusiastically laid into him.

“Done,” Law said, cutting the thread and tying the ends off.

“Thank you…” Penguin mumbled under his breath, as if this spelt the end of his torment.

“How does it look?” Clione asked nervously.

“It’s fine,” Penguin said. “Captain’s stitches are flawless. _As always_.”

Clione gingerly pushed himself back up to his feet and twisted each leg with a quiet ‘huh’.

“Thank you, Penguin,” Law said, ignoring the gentle bite in his tone. “At least Penguin’s pocket change didn’t go to waste. I would’ve hated to use this on our own crew.”

“Remember the conversation we just had about you being a nicer person?”

“I remember the part where I didn’t agree to anything,” Law said as he walked over to the sink and washed his hands. He emptied the rest of the kit in the trash can and threw the kit itself in a cupboard. “Well that was time well spent,” he muttered. He glanced over to see Penguin lifting Clione’s arm over his shoulders to help him walk. “Don’t you have somewhere to be, Penguin?”

“Yeah, but control seems to be where the party’s at,” Penguin said brightly, and before Law could simply order him to return to his post, he added, “Plus, Clione needs help. Unless you want to carry him back with you?”

“I just saw him standing on his own, he can walk by himself,” Law said.

“It hurts!” Clione said. “You have no concept of mercy!”

“Letting you walk away after attacking my crew is a mercy,” Law said. “If you froze to death in the freezer, that would be a mercy. Attack anyone on this ship a second time, and I’ll use my Devil Fruit ability to throw you back into the ocean, one limb at a time. You’ll get to feel as each body part gets crushed under the weight of the sea.”

“You’re a real bundle of sunshine, aren’t you?” he mumbled. Law should’ve added some caveat about no backtalk either.

“He isn’t always like this,” Penguin said, as if Law wasn’t right there with them. If he wanted his honor defended, he would’ve done it himself. “You caught him on a bad day, I think.”

As Penguin and Clione started hobbling unsteadily back to the control room, careful not to slip as the ship rocked back and forth, Law found that he had somehow ended up being the one carrying the towel and mop.

“I saw him stand up. I saw his injuries. He’s fully capable of moving on his own,” Law pointed out, with half a mind to make Clione take them.

“It’s fine, I got him, Captain,” Penguin said, a little too cheerfully, and Law had a distinct feeling that the two of them had somehow arranged this on purpose. He’s done so much for this crew, and this is how they treat him. It really would have been less of a hassle to toss the man back into the ocean like Shachi had suggested. He had his bubbles. He could’ve maybe even made it back to the surface.

Law huffed, carrying the towels in one hand with his sword tucked underneath his arm. In his other hand, he irritably dragged the mop behind him, dragging it over the blood trail Clione had inconsiderately left behind on their way to the kitchen. Law knew he could be unkind and even spiteful, but he was far from sadistic, and the longer Penguin stayed by his side to keep an eye on their accidental stowaway, the more it rankled him.

“I released Clione, just as you asked,” Law muttered. “I don’t need you chaperoning us.”

“Oh, I’m not— I’m just… I mean there’s only so much data we can collect on the currents when Whitebeard’s got the sea all screwed up. I don’t have much to do at my post,” Penguin says.

And with perfect timing, the world bailed Penguin out of this conversation and suddenly shifted. Law paused as he felt the Polar Tang began to dip forward, and just when it seemed like it should stop, it kept on going. He sent a sharp glance back at Clione and Penguin as the floor became a ramp. The other two began scrabbling at the wall and, when they fell, they began grabbing uselessly at the sloping floor instead.

It was only getting steeper.

“Hey!” Clione protested, when Law swiped at them with the mop. He and Penguin lost their short-lived grip on the floor and began to slide down. Holding on would only make their landing rougher.

Law took the shortcut to the end of the hallway, taking a running leap towards the wall on the far end and landing with his feet on either side of the doorframe. He tossed the towels down beside him for all the good it did as Penguin and Clione crashing down after him in an inelegant heap.

“We’re rolling,” Law said thoughtfully, and perhaps unnecessarily. Capsizing wasn’t as dangerous for the Polar Tang as it was for other ships, but it was a first. He knelt down, twisting the door handle and letting it fall open into the room. “So. How are things?”

“ _How do you think it’s going, Law?_ ” Shachi’s shrill voice pierced the air. “ _Read the room!_ ”

Law dropped down into the control room, passing Jean Bart on the way.

Jean Bart, in an impressive feat of coordination, had braced himself in place by planting his feet on the ground and a hand against the ceiling, locking himself in place with his immense height while he continued to steer. He didn’t even flinch as Penguin and Clione came tumbling in after Law, bouncing off his back on the way down.

“We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die,” Shachi chanted tearfully, lying prone on the wall as he stared at Jean Bart above him.

“Ocean floor seems to be rising,” Law said. “We must be getting close.”

“We’re about to do flips, Law! _Flips_! Is that all you have to say about the situation?” Shachi cried out.

“Well, watch out for the sea floor, I guess. Jean Bart?”

“The Polar Tang’s nose sank too far, we couldn’t recover,” Jean Bart reported.

“Do you remember what I said about pearling?” Law asked, as the ship continued to bowl forward.

“Did you tell him the part about how it _never happens_?” Shachi howled as he and Bepo clutched each other and rolled across the ceiling.

“I guess I shouldn’t have underestimated the Grand Line. We’re going to capsize, Jean Bart. There’s no fighting what’s already in motion, but the Polar Tang can handle capsizing, so there’s no need to panic just yet. The real problem is if we start to gain momentum in this state. Activate the—shut _up_ , Shachi. Activate the front ballast.”

Law walked across the ceiling as he guided the man. It really was impressive, watching Jean Bart actually pull it off, upside down with only one hand deftly switching back and forth from the console and the steering wheel. The rest of the crew scrambled, constantly struggling with their footing as the Polar Tang made a full rotation. For a moment, the ship dipped down again, threatening a second tumble through the currents, but after several breathtaking seconds, they finally rocked backward, regaining their equilibrium.

“Are we dead?” Bepo whimpered. Shachi, now properly facedown on the floor, let out a quiet groan from underneath the mink.

“Not even close,” Law smirked. “Good work, Jean Bart. Let’s keep the ballast tank open for a while. The sea floor is rising, and we need to get away from it. The water will be a bit calmer closer to the surface. ...Hey, Clione. Good thing we got you inside the sub earlier, isn’t it?”

“It’s a bad thing you fucking _dragged me through the ocean_ in the first place!”

“Does that mean we’re almost there?” Penguin asked.

“I don’t know,” Law said. “Why don’t you go back to your station and tell us?”

“Wait, what are you guys doing back here?” Shachi asked, glancing between Penguin and Clione.

Law bailed, abandoning the conversation to check for damages. He didn’t care what Penguin told him, though he doubted Penguin would share the tense conversation he had had with Law.

At least nothing seemed too badly damaged. Bepo’s charts were scattered across the room, and there were splotches of black where his inkwell had shattered and spilled across various surfaces. Trying to mop the ink off the ceiling was going to be fun.

After some rifling around, Law managed to track down the transponder snail in the mess and fixed its hat before speaking through it. “Uni, how far off are we?”

“Uh… not sure, Captain,” Uni said.

“So do the math. All the currents are converging towards a single point. Measure the currents around us to determine where they cross. From that information, you can determine our distance,” Law said.

His order was met with a quiet noise of acknowledgement and then followed by a period of silence. He tucked the snail away, letting it perch on his shoulder as he checked up on Jean Bart.

“Level the Polar Tang and slow her down.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Do you need someone to take over for you?” Law asked quietly as he checked the gauges on the control panel.

“No.”

“Good. You performed well. I wasn’t sure if you were as good as you said or if you were just bullshitting me,” Law huffed quietly.

“Yet you put me here anyway.”

It didn’t sound like an accusation, but didn’t seem quite like a joke either. Whatever it was, Law brushed the subtle prodding off with a smile. “Turned out to be a good choice, didn’t it? Whenever you’re free, though, I’ll need you to clean the ink off the ceiling. No one else here is going to be able to reach that.”

With that said, he left Jean Bart to his post and turned his attention back to the snail.

“Uni.”

“...Still working on it, Captain,” Uni said tensely.

“Here’s a simpler calculation: will you figure it out before or after we get to Marineford?” Law asked, a touch of impatience coloring his tone.

“Come on, Captain,” Penguin said. “Math’s hard.”

“I know it is. That’s why you’re supposed to be in there working with him,” Law said. Uni’s innate understanding of the currents made his work in sonar invaluable, but having learned everything through experience alone, he has trouble with calculations and quantifying his knowledge for others to understand. Law yanked the Den Den Mushi from his shoulder and tossed it to Penguin. “Get it done.”

“Got it, Captain,” Penguin said, grabbing an unbroken inkwell and one of many sea charts that were scattered throughout the room.

Bepo was still trying to pick up after himself, gathering everything that had been thrown about during the Polar Tang’s front flip, but even though the waters had somewhat calmed down, it was still a struggle. He pawed a little sadly at the papers, trying to get them off the floor, plaintive eyes darting occasionally at Law but never asking for help.

Law sighed and started gathering together all the papers for him. “How go the sea charts?” he asked.

“...Slowly,” Bepo admitted, avoiding eye contact as he took the maps from Law.

“Keep at it, then,” Law said. It was only to be expected, considering how rough the ride here was, so Law couldn’t give him much grief for what little he’d gotten done, but Bepo still flinched at the words, quickly taking the papers and scuttling off back to his table. At least he was being somewhat productive. Shachi, on the other hand, was absentmindedly mopping the perfectly clean floor as he stared at Penguin and Clione. “Shachi, at least make yourself useful and mop the blood.”

“My bad, captain,” he said as he pushed the mop towards a line of blood that conveniently brought him closer to Law. “I see Penguin got to you.”

“It was the usual moral argument. Penguin wasn’t too keen on gambling to see how long he’d last,” Law said.

“You sure this one’s not a mistake?” Shachi asked. A light bruise was beginning to form on his cheek where Clione had struck him, but he didn’t look too bothered by the coating mechanic’s presence.

Law glanced over at Clione, who had certainly walked across the room with little difficulty. He hovered over Penguin’s shoulder, nodding along as Penguin explained the equations he scribbled on the back of the map. Judging from his blank expression, Law had a feeling the man was just humoring him for the sake of having something to do.

“He was easy enough to deal with, but he better not get the drop on you a second time,” Law said. He considered ordering Clione to do something more productive with his time, but there was only so much mess to clean up, and so long as Clione stayed out of his way—something the man seemed eager to do—he was fine letting Penguin have his captive audience.

“I'm surprised you went along with it,” Jean Bart spoke up.

Law glanced up at Jean Bart, whose expression showed neither approval nor disapproval despite his naturally stern face.

“If you have a problem with it, take it up with Penguin and let me know what you two decide,” Law said, not bothering to lower his voice like the others. He ignored the angry expression Clione shot at him, but Penguin looked ready to argue, back straight and work forgotten. “Whether he lives or dies, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“It’s not an objection,” Jean Bart said before Penguin could say anything. “It was just an observation.”

Something Law couldn’t fault Jean Bart for. He watched Jean Bart as much as Jean Bart watched him.

“So long as the requests are _harmless_ ,” Law said, sending a pointed look toward Clione who was still frozen in place, “I’m not opposed to doing favors for the crew.”

“That seems fair, considering what you like to put them through,” Jean Bart commented, earning a frown from Law.

Shachi let out a loud laugh. “He’s been here for two weeks, and he’s already got you pegged, Captain!”

“... _Law_.”

Penguin’s face was pale and his expression rigid. In his years of sailing with them, his crew had yet to back down from an order, and Penguin’s unwillingness to show fear even as they sailed into Marineford was testament to their faith in him.

“We made it, didn’t we?” Law smiled. He didn’t wait for an answer, checking the windows to see if he could catch a part of the battle from below. Rays of sunlight streamed down through the water with bits of broken ice and debris leaving shadowy streaks. Ahead of them was a vast shadow that not even the Polar Tang’s headlights could pierce.

“Aokiji covered the entire bay,” Penguin said, joining Law by the window. He held up the Den Den Mushi for Law. “The Tang can handle a bit of ice, but this is a lot.”

“Just keep going,” Law said. “We’ll find an opening.”

Law watched as they passed the pitch black threshold, darkness gliding across the decks of the Polar Tang. What little flashes of light that could make it through Aokiji’s layer of ice couldn’t survive in the ocean. A sense of coldness swept over Law as the Polar Tang slipped into the lightless sea.

“What’s the plan?” Jean Bart asked.

“To find an opening,” Law repeated. “There’ll be weak points in the ice. We might be able to find a crack or two that we can take advantage of.”

“It’s thick enough to support the weight of giants,” Penguin said.

“Unless they plan on making the other Admirals fight with one hand behind their backs the entire time, something _will_ happen,” he said stubbornly. The Marines would be idiots not to take advantage of the fact that the Whitebeard pirates are literally walking on ice. “...Ah.”

“‘Ah’ what? What’s with that ‘ah’?” Shachi asked nervously.

“Uni,” Law said through the transponder snail. “Release the Cameko.”

“Right now, sir?”

“...Yeah,” Law said. From the window, he saw a spray of bubbles burst out into the ocean, passing through the headlights towards the surface above. The snails inside were just specks, whirling around uncontrollably in their bubbles as they made their ascent.

“Think the little guys will make it through all of this okay?” Penguin asked as he watched with Law.

“All that matters is that they make it to the surface,” Law said. “We probably aren’t getting them back anyway.”

“...Right,” Penguin said, a touch of melancholy seeping into his tone. “I guess we can’t exactly stick around afterwards to pick them up.”

Law understood the sentimentality, though he’d never gotten attached to them himself. They’d spent years breeding and raising them in the tanks. This had always been their purpose.

“Should we set the projector up?” Shachi asked. He started going for the cabinet by Bepo’s worktable, when Law reached out with Kikoku and stopped him from moving any further.

“Let’s wait until after things calm down,” Law said, still gazing up at the surface where bright flashes of light would flare up for an instant and disappear just as quickly.

“It’s... pretty quiet down here though, though,” Shachi said, nervous now that he realized something was on the horizon.

“Won’t be for long,” Law said. “Jean Bart, last chance if you want someone to swap with you.”

“I’m fine,” the man said.

“Then I’ll leave our lives in your capable hands.”

“This is where that ‘ahhh’ thing comes in, isn’t it? I really don’t like how this conversation’s going. What’s happening?” Shachi started to babble.

“Just _look_ ,” Law said, pointing skywards. Rather than find his own window, Shachi scooted up right next to him to try and figure out what Law was seeing that he wasn’t. Law sighed and pushed Shachi’s hair out of his face so he could continue watching the lightshow. Orange flares continued to pepper the surface, growing brighter and brighter as the ice chipped and melted away. “Cannonballs rip and tear through things. How often do you see them explode?”

“Okay… so… what is that?” Shachi said haltingly, trying not to panic over something he knew was going to be worth panicking over.

“I suspect it’s Akainu, no longer fighting with one arm behind his back.”

“The light guy?” Clione chimed in.

“Magma, if memory serves me correctly. Kizaru is the light logia,” Law said. He wasn’t too worried about Kizaru at the moment. The natural refraction of light in water, coupled with the unpredictability of the ocean meant that Admiral, at least, was one less thing to worry over. “We’re not in nearly as bad a position as Whitebeard’s crew, but…”

“We’re right under the battle,” Penguin realized.

“Exactly. That, and magma after it melts, becomes rock. It’s not so bad when it’s hitting ice. It’ll come down in smaller pieces. Once the ice melts, though, we’ll be dodging boulders,” Law said. He gave Jean Bart the Den Den Mushi, making sure it was firmly planted on the dashboard. “I expect some amazing dodging, Jean Bart. Better keep an eye on that sonar.”

“How did I get into this mess…?” Clione mumbled.

“Don’t start that again,” Law said curtly. He felt the ocean beginning to churn again. It wasn’t nearly as tumultuous as traveling through Whitebeard’s tsunami, but the magma raining down over their heads and the smaller currents created by the drastic difference in temperature would make for an interesting game of chance.

Rays of light broke through the surface of the water as the ice was chipped apart and melted away. Sediment from the cooling magma clouded the water, and the sunbeams reflected off the smog and gave it a gentle orange glow, like the haze that preceded a fire. Just the sight of it made Law’s chest feel tight and constricted, and he interlaced his fingers, rubbing his hands together to shake off the unpleasant feeling of ash and dust on his skin.

“We’re in the middle of the bay. If we retreat, back towards the entrance, we can get out of the line of fire,” Shachi suggested.

“Last we saw, Whitebeard’s allies were separated by the ice. If we pull back, we might get hit by a shot meant for them. We’ll keep moving forward,” Law said. So long as they stayed on the move, they only had to worry about the threat in front of them, rather than the ones from above. “Jean Bart, take us deeper. The further down we are, the more time we have for the magma to cool. Shachi, Penguin, return to your stations. It’s target practice.”

Any misgivings Shachi had about this quickly melted away under Law’s orders. He sprinted out of the room, one hand on his head to keep his hat from flying off. Penguin hesitated before he left.

“If it’s all hands on deck, Bepo and Clione can help Shachi load the torpedoes,” he said.

“We still need Bepo working on our exit strategy. Clione...” Law faltered. “Clione, you know this area.”

“I’ve never been to Marineford,” Clione replied, looking a little puzzled by the topic.

“You don’t need to know the layout. You’ve worked with ships that came from all islands surrounding Sabaody. Get on the sea charts with Bepo,” Law said peevishly, a little more irritated with himself for not taking advantage of this.

“But I—”

“It’s an easy job: Bepo asks questions, and you answer it. _Get on it_ ,” Law said, tapping Kikoku impatiently against the floor for emphasis. Quickly reminded of his expendability, Clione darted over to Bepo, who shuffled aside to make room for him, and Law turned his attention back to Penguin. “There, he’s useful. I won’t throw him off the ship. Now get to sonar before Uni has to do the rest of your job.”

Penguin nodded and left. Jean Bart was, infuriatingly enough, still slipping the occasional glance Law’s way.

“Questions?” Law asked.

“You think very quickly on your feet,” Jean Bart said, more of a statement than a compliment.

“We need you focused on steering, not on me,” Law said, though given how steady he’d been throughout this entire journey, he didn’t have any real criticism. Even with only one eye on the control panel, he had yet to make a mistake that could have been avoided. “Steady as you can. Shachi knows how to coordinate with sonar, but he’s going to depend on them to make accurate readings, and they’re all counting on you and your pathing to keep the readings reliable. If we hit a bump and Shachi misses a target, we could hit a rock dead-on.”

“I’m surprised by the amount of trust you have in your crew,” Jean Bart said.

The accusation drew a catty grin from Law, and his eyes narrowed as he met Jean Bart’s hard gaze dead on. “Don’t doubt their competence. My crew has never failed me, and no matter what I’ve put them though, we’ve never been defeated. Or captured.”

Jean Bart didn’t relent at the sharp words that prodded at his record with World Nobles.

“I wasn’t calling you or your crew’s competence into question,” he said. “Just appreciating your trust in your crew, especially given the situation. You didn’t strike me as the type to have faith in others.”

“Ah.”

Law fell silent, aware that he should apologize for his harshness but too rattled by the period in his life where he _didn’t_ have faith in anything. And here he was now, putting everything from his crew to his name on the line. The dead air between them began to stretch and fill the room as neither of them spoke. Eventually, Jean Bart broke the stalemate between them, the tattoos on his forehead growing taught upon his furrowed brow.

“Then again, I knew you were an opportunist from the start. I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who would see a brawl against marines as a chance to recruit me would be prone to acting on impulse.”

“Okay. I am sorry. It was a thoughtless thing to say,” Law said through gritted teeth.

“You have a nasty smile. And a worse temper,” Jean Bart said.

“...I said. I’m. Sorry,” Law said, though his halting, overly patient words probably nullified any effect of his apology.

“Don’t be. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about you.”

Law jerked, pulling a double take at Jean Bart’s response. With the man’s eyes narrowed and teeth bared in a twisted sort of grimace, it took Law a moment to realize Jean Bart was amused. The transponder snail between them practically leapt up as the crew realized the stony-faced newcomer was taking the piss out of their captain.

“Oh. _Ooooh_!”

“ _Sassy_!”

“Yeah, Jean Bart! Don’t take the captain’s shit!”

“Wait, is Law speechless or just ignoring you?”

“Speechless,” Jean Bart said curtly, and the answer was met with a wave of cheers.

Law shoved his hat down over his eyes. “This. This is what I get for giving my crew unquestioning support,” Law said, adjusting his hat as he ducked his head. He retreated back to the window, perhaps a big sulkily.

Outside, pebbles were beginning to fall from the surface. Stones of irregular size pelted the Polar Tang, bouncing off its steel hull harmlessly but gradually growing larger and larger. He was reminded of Oskea, the country that fell into the sea, and the underwater hailstorm his crew had faced to reach it. The crew had walked away from that ordeal with only superficial damage to the ship, but the experience had left them grounded in Oskea for the time it had taken to confirm that the Polar Tang’s thick hull hadn’t been compromised. Even a single crack could jeopardize the entire ship and everyone in it.

The experience had given Law a decent idea of what the ship could handle. Akainu’s solidified magma would soon start to fall in larger chunks, but for now, at least, the Polar Tang could handle it.

“Do you think…?” Clione’s voice trailed off as he glanced at the window. Outside, some of the debris fell at different speeds. The slabs of magma were starting to grow larger in size.

“That some of these might be bodies? Yes,” Law said.

“I was going to ask if you think Whitebeard might lose. But thank you for that mental image,” Clione shuddered. “What’s even happening up there?”

“Back in Sabaody, we saw one of Whitebeard’s men stab him,” Bepo spoke up. “Whitebeard turned in his allies in exchange for Ace’s life, so they turned on him.”

“Like hell. Whitebeard’s a legend because he never does anything like that,” Law cut in with a scoff. “Don’t trust anything the World Government shows you. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Bepo jerked slightly at the comment, peering at him with wounded eyes. “Captain?”

“That’s too harsh,” Jean Bart said. Law expected that kind of forthrightness from the rest of his crew, perhaps, but not from Jean Bart. Coming from someone who once wielded the same level of authority as Law did, the commentary was especially unwelcomed. “Bepo relayed exactly what he saw and heard.”

“But is that what he thinks? If so, it reflects poorly on me as captain,” Law said. “Sengoku cut the feed immediately after the attack to block all further information from getting out.”

“They were saying they didn’t want to expose the public to violence,” Penguin spoke up via the Den Den Mushi.

“Then they wouldn’t have chosen to air an _execution_ in the first place. The Marines are controlling the narrative,” Law said. “Which begs the question, why didn’t they keep the cameras rolling? It’d be quite the story. An emperor famous for his loyalty to his crew showing his true colors and betraying his own men for the son of the hated pirate king? The fact that they’d pass up the opportunity to continue ruining Whitebeard’s reputation means something happened afterward that the Marines didn’t want us to see. I suspect they wanted to deny Whitebeard the opportunity to defend his name. The World Government does love its misinformation. They won’t leave anyone alive to refute their claims.”

Whitebeard was a disgraceful traitor to his own men.

Portgas D. Ace was a threat to the world whose existence would bring forth an age of terror and piracy.

Amber Lead Disease was contagious.

“This is all conjecture,” Clione said.

This was experience, Law didn’t say. “It’s logic. But if you have a better explanation, feel free to speak up. We’ll see who’s right in the end with our front row seats to the new era.”

Clione didn’t look particularly convinced with Law’s answers but didn’t press any further, which was honestly the only smart decision he’d seen the man make. Blindly attacking his crew might’ve been a massive, panic-fueled mistake, but Law could respect someone who refrained from making choices based on limited information.

Law, in turn, dropped the subject. There wasn’t much he could do to sway the man over to see it from his perspective. He’d just have to let the crew see the unfiltered truth for themselves.

The distant clanging of stones hitting the Polar Tang were starting to come down in smaller number and louder in volume. Law glanced outside The stones raining down on them were growing larger chunks, many of them larger than his fist.

“How sturdy are these windows?” Clione asked.

“Sturdy enough,” Law said. He’d shelled out a bit of extra cash during repairs to further reinforce the hull after Oskea, but as a particularly large piece of magma hit the deck in front of them and bounced off to the side, he conceded, “Thought now is probably a good time to start break out the torpedoes, Shachi. Small arms only. No need to let either side know we’re down here.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I know how to lay low,” Shachi said.

As the captain of a smoothly running crew, there was little for Law to do for now but step back and let them do their jobs. Bepo and Clione went back to discussing the locations of nearby islands while, and Jean Bart was busy coordinating with the other stations.

It was almost strange to look at Jean Bart and find him completely engrossed in his work. It struck Law, just how much he watched Law. The sudden relief that came with Jean Bart no longer paying attention to his every move only served to irritate Law further.

He couldn’t reasonably tell the man to stop. Jean Bart was never obtrusive about it or critical of his decisions, and it felt wrong to nitpick at a habit likely gained during his enslavement by the World Nobles.

The feeling of eyes constantly on his back grated at Law, nonetheless. Jean Bart rarely spoke what was on his mind, but he was a captain once, too, with his own crew and his own opinions on how to run things. Watching and thinking about what he would have done if he were in Law’s place felt too much like someone telling what Law ought to do.

He wasn’t being fair.

Despite Jean Bart’s best efforts, the Polar Tang was beginning to sway unevenly once again. Law closed his eyes, listening to the muted sounds of the Polar Tang’s torpedoes clearing their path. He doubted the Whitebeard Pirates or the Marines would notice this. The Polar Tang was, quite literally, far beneath their notice, and they both had each other to worry about.

The Marines had frozen the waters, immobilizing Whitebeard’s ships and forcing them to charge their cliffs on foot, only to switch gears on them midway and target the ice beneath the feet once they left the relative safety of their ships. The Whitebeard Pirates were hamstrung with their captain unable to unleash his full might with one of his own taken hostage and forced to respond to each of the World Government’s threats.

Whitebeard, one of four figures that the World Government had never dared to cross, might actually lose.

Law smothered a breathy laugh and ignored the concerned looks from Bepo. He might have come here on nothing more than an impulse, but he’d made the right choice. They would have missed out on one of the greatest massacres of their time.

“Fuck!” Shachi swore, and the subsequent explosion that jarred the Polar Tang tore Law out of his thoughts. The transponder snail mirrored his expression, teeth gritted and eyes filled with a mixture of anger and panic. Law jumped back towards the window to see several torpedoes launched in rapid suggestion as Shachi attempted to correct his mistake. A large rock, easily larger than Law was tall, was breaking apart in uneven pieces where it had been struck off-center. “ _Fuck!_ ”

Law prepared himself to activate his Room to try and divert the incoming shower, but his efforts came too late as massive chunks of broken stone came crashing down on the nose of the Polar Tang. His heart nearly stopped and his Room disappeared at the sight of the pale white line that formed on the window, and he wondered briefly if this was going to be how he went out. Quiet. Alone. No one to hear them.

No one would even know the Heart Pirates had been at the Battle of Marineford.

Distantly, he could hear Clione screaming, but Law couldn’t stop staring, heart in his throat, at the thin hairline fracture in the window. He couldn’t even blink as he waited for the crack to grow and split the window, unleashing a torrent of water into the ship. He could maybe use his abilities to get out of this alive. How many could he save?

But the window held, and as Law ran his hands along the surface, he found the crack had barely made it past the first layer of glass.

With a deep but sharp breath, Law clamped a hand over Clione’s still screaming mouth.

“Shachi,” he said to the transponder snail, his voice miraculously even.

“Captain! Are we alright?” Shachi shouted.

“We’re fine,” Law said stiffly, shifting to accommodate Clione’s frantic struggling. “You can do better than that.”

“I know. I’m sorry!” he said.

“Don’t apologize. Just keep going,” he said, and in a lower voice, he spoke into Clione’s ear as he gripped his jaw and turned it towards the crack in the window. “There’s nothing we can do about that right now. It’s not going to kill us. Do not bring it up.”

Clione couldn’t respond, but after what seemed like a bewildered sound of agreement, Law released him.

“Why?” he whispered.

Law glanced back at Jean Bart, who couldn’t have missed what had happened but was clearly pouring all his efforts into his assigned duty.

“This isn’t the time to be looking back on mistakes,” Law said, keeping his voice low to make sure it wasn’t picked up by the baby transponder snail.

Law wiped the cold sweat trickling down his jaw with the front of his shirt. He wasn’t going to die here, he reminded himself in an attempt to calm down. He _couldn’t_.

Something that could only be described as a ripple passed through the air. Law saw it, a strange blur to his vision, before he even registered the wave of force surging through his entire body. Whatever it was, he could feel it traveling down to his bones, and his joints creaked and protested. A roaring sound filled his head, followed by a throbbing pain.

Law reeled, struck by sudden vertigo. Something hit him, and after several harrowing moments as he tried to collect himself, he felt cool metal pressed against his face and realized it was he who hit the floor.

The room spun. It didn’t help that Bepo was shaking his shoulders. His head was slowly beginning to clear, though he was having trouble hearing past the ringing in his skull.

“Captain!” Bepo cried out.

Law glanced over to see Clione lying nearby.

“Jean Bart,” he mumbled, still dazed.

“What?”

“Jean Bart!” Law shouted, though the volume of his own voice had him cringing. The man was slumped over the dashboard. Was he conscious? Was he still manning the Polar Tang? “Check on him! Get me over there.”

Bepo dragged Law back up to his feet and practically carried him over to where Jean Bart was slumped over his station. The man was conscious, at least, eyes wide and blank as he struggled to process what was going on. It was only the weight of his own body holding the steering wheel in place, but Law didn’t have the cognizance to fully appreciate Jean Bart’s instincts.

“Kneel over more,” Law ordered, gesturing for Jean Bart to lean down closer to him. He obeyed and patiently waited as Law checked his pupils. With his own vision only just starting to clear, the process took longer than it ordinarily should have.

“What happened?” Jean Bart mumbled as a hand pressed against his forehead.

“I don’t know,” Law said. Conqueror’s Haki, perhaps? Except Bepo seemed much less worse for wear than Law, and though the crew hadn’t faced that type of Haki very much during their travels, he didn’t think Bepo was that much more resistant to that type of attack than him. The room wasn’t moving as much anymore; not just the vertigo from whatever attack they’d run into but the sea had also begun to calm as well. The Marines’ attack on the ocean had ceased. “The Whitebeard Pirates’ counterattack, I suppose.”

“Were we in the crossfire or was that just what it feels like to get _clipped_ by Whitebeard?” Shachi groaned.

“Well, I doubt they’d try and aim an attack into the ocean, so I’d assume the latter,” Law said, though he couldn’t really discount the possibility, though. Whitebeard had created a tsunami by aiming his abilities into the water. Thinking about it now, if they’d been in the water during one of those attacks, they really could have died.

Law scoffed quietly. “Let’s get the Prokos set up,” he told everyone.

“Hey, not that I’m ignoring orders or anything, Captain, but the projector snails are in sonar and control… and I’ve got nothing here,” Shachi said. “Are you guys having a watch party without me?”

“I’d prefer you at your station,” Law said. Even though Shachi didn’t really respond, he could _feel_ him fidget through the baby transponder snail. He always got restless when he was left alone for too long, and the cramped quarters he worked in certainly didn’t help. The weapons department was more of a compartment than anything else. “...You can come on up and join everyone else. Looks like they’re done throwing magma around, but you’re going back at the first sign of trouble.”

“Sweet!”

With Shachi dealt with, Law stepped beside Clione, who was still laying on the floor and gave him a little nudge. “Are you hurting?”

“No. Just sad,” he mumbled into the floor. Law grabbed both sides of the man’s face, pulling his eyelids up with his thumbs. “Hey! What—?”

“Just making sure you’re not concussed,” Law said. “Good news, it doesn’t look like your brain is any more damaged than it already was.”

“...I hate you.”

“You mean nothing to me,” Law said. He left Clione to lament his fate on the floor. So long as he stayed out of the way, Law was willing to let the man sulk.

“I’m here!” Shachi announced. He came running into the room, arms outstretched as if he were expecting some sort of applause.

“Well, get out,” Law said immediately.

“I’m getting some mixed messages here, Captain,” he said, arms still raised into the air.

“The watch party is in sonar. This is where the adults go,” Law said.

“Yeah, but if I gotta go back, it’s right down the hatch,” Shachi pointed as he gestured down the hallway. Law couldn’t really argue with that logic. “Sonar is all across the… way. Oh. Oh fuck. Holy shit.”

Shachi’s eyes widened as gaze slid past Law. Law glanced over his shoulder to check what Shachi had seen and, unsurprisingly, found he’d been staring at the crack in the window. There was no real hiding it, Law supposed.

“It’s fine, Shachi,” Law said.

“It’s _fine_?” Shachi echoed. His face went pale as he was swept up in useless regret. “We could’ve died!”

“What?” Penguin asked. The baby Den Den Mushi practically jumped up at Shachi’s panicked declaration. “How? What happened?”

“We got hit earlier! The Polar Tang’s busted!” Shachi shouted into the snail’s face.

Law shoved a thumb into the snail’s mouth. Its teeth chomped down on his nail with all its snail strength as it tried to speak around him, which was an incredibly weird feeling.

“A window was cracked earlier,” Law informed the rest of the crew, an announcement that brought on a chorus of muffled yelling. “But it held. Get a hold of yourselves.”

“Get a hold…? I almost got us all killed! There’s a thin line between riding in a submarine and dying in a bucket, and that line is a crack in the window!” Shachi said.

“I really don’t have time for your insecurity right now,” Law said impatiently. “You missed and hit _one_ target off-center. How many people in the world would be capable of consistently hitting targets based entirely off of someone else’s calculations? The reason you’re on my crew is because you’re capable.”

“I’m on your crew because we grew up together,” he said weakly. It was a gross exaggeration, though Shachi was unaware of it. Law had been traveling the North Blue long before they’d met as teens. At least he was no longer on the verge of falling to pieces.

“You know I don’t hesitate to get rid of crewmates who don’t perform,” Law reminded Shachi. “That includes you.”

“That’s… so nice of you,” Shachi said uncertainly, looking a little thrown by the conversation.

“I might be concussed,” Law said, removing his finger from the mouth of their baby transponder snail now that everyone had calmed down.

Shachi laughed and then seemed to recall the attack from the surface that had nearly taken most of their crew down. “Wait… are you serious?”

“Help me get the Proko set up,” Law ordered as he opened the cabinet next to Bepo’s workspace where their projector snail was having a nap. Law started gathering all the accessories as Shachi joined him and cooed at their snail. “Careful with the eyes.”

Delicately avoiding the snail’s face, Shachi squatted down and lifted the snail up with a slight grunt. Law helped Shachi set the snail up on the table as they began the task of assembling the projector with all of its attachments.

“Hey, _buddy_ ,” Shachi said, giving the snail a little pat to wake him up, and its eyes opened one by one.

“What. Is. _That_?”

Clione had craned his head to look at them, his voice breathless and eyes wide with horror. Shachi and Law exchanged glances with one another before looking down at the object of his terror. Their Proko was a hefty creature the size of a large dog, but it was probably the dozens of ill-matched eyes that had Clione all worked up.

“...I forget, sometimes, what our crew’s gotta seem like to other people,” Shachi thought out loud before explaining the situation to Clione. “Captain’s Devil Fruit ability lets him modify living things. Like cutting off one snail’s eye stalk and attaching it to another.”

“That’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen!” Clione said, unable to tear his eyes away from dozens the mismatched eyes.

“It gets a lot less nightmarish once you get used to it,” Shachi said, and then he raised his voice a bit for the baby transponder. “But at least it's not our eyes he’s using anymore, _right, Peng_?”

“We agreed not to talk about that anymore,” Penguin said flatly.

“We released our visual Den Den Mushi into the harbor earlier,” Law explained, more for Jean Bart’s benefit than Clione’s. The man hadn’t reacted nearly as strongly to the Proko as Clione did, but even he was looking at the snail for an unusually long time. “I took an eye from each of them and grafted them to this projector snail so we can get footage of what’s going on above us. With any luck, we’ll find a good angle of the battles.”

He snapped one of the couplings in place, and the eyes lit up, projecting various images across the room. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to the order of individual images laid out before them in their uneven rows, but choosing a select few videos helped paint a stark picture of the battle taking place above them.

The snails had been dispersed across the bay, and the currents had taken some of them as far as the shore, along with bodies of the dead. Their expressions were frozen in their final moments, contorted with combinations of fear, rage, and despair as they’d fought to the end. These were the faces of men who knew they were going to die long before death had come for them.

“I was wrong,” Clione said faintly, sounding as if he were far away. He was sitting up now, chin resting on his propped up knees and hands on his head as he watched in distress. “This is the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”

The dead lined the bottom of the cliffside, rising and falling with the tide. Buoyant. It would take some longer to sink into the ocean than others, covered in burns and missing pieces where they’d been hit by magma and cannonfire. It would take longer, still, for them to decay, and Law took a deep breath, appreciating the Polar Tang’s stale, recycled air.

“Ignore the bodies,” Law told him. “You’re missing the main event.”

“...What is _wrong_ with you?” Clione asked. He couldn’t stop staring at the bodies, but apparently, he could stare at Law, who could feel his incredulous gaze without even looking at him.

“Captain’s just used to this kind of thing,” Shachi said, sounding a little disconcerted himself. He didn’t realize how right he was. “He’s got a thing for watching people die.”

“When you put it like that, you make me sound really creepy,” Law said.

“It’s a really weird hobby, captain!”

“And you _are_ really creepy!” Clione added. “How can you watch this like it’s nothing?”

“Practice,” Law said. He didn’t have Penguin’s weak stomach or Shachi’s hypervigilance. The instinct to pull back the face of violence had long since left him, but he liked to think it made him a good doctor and a better captain. Men like X Drake who played at being pirates but couldn’t pull the trigger pissed him off the most. “You’ve got to get past the bodies and focus on the bigger picture.”

The Moby Dick bobbed up and down the waves, anchored at the center of the battle. It was a behemoth of a ship, standing easily over a hundred meters in height and bearing twenty cannons on each side. Its four towering masts had been shattered and set ablaze, so bright it left spots in Law’s vision, but he refused to look away.

The white whale figurehead was stained with soot as plumes of thick black smoke billowed out. Even in the face of destruction, the gunports lit up as those trapped inside their burning home spent their last moments firing their weapons. Magma oozed from the Moby Dick’s ravaged frame like blood, its painted grin making the devastation all the more surreal.

There’s little Whitebeard’s crew can do but jump ship.

Law’s own crew had fallen silent, struck mute as they watched the famed Moby Dick sink burning into the ocean. They might not have understood Law’s reasons for coming here today, but they at least appreciated the gravitas of the situation. They were here witnessing the end of something monumental.

Once one got past the shock of seeing so many dead, it was easier to notice the many who still yet lived. They burned and struggled in the water, but they lived. Desperate men continued to wade towards land, heedless of the cannons trained on the waters.

They wouldn’t find any salvation waiting for them on the shore, where the Marines had erected massive iron walls to keep them fenced inside the bay. Marine soldiers fired down at the pirates through the gunports installed in each wall. The only vulnerability in the ramparts was the opening Oars Jr. had created and then promptly filled with his own colossal corpse. Their only chance of survival relied on climbing over the body of their fallen comrade under a hail of bullets.

Even if they survived, they still had a war to win.

Law could feel the panic beginning to well among Whitebeard’s men. The odds of making it out alive had disappeared along with their ship, and knowing this made them all the more frenzied. They swam with weapons in their hands and clamped between their teeth, determined to take as many people down with them as they could.

Despite his own insistence that his crew watch the battle, Law tore his eyes away. He tugged at the brim of his hat and tugged it down over his eyes, letting the soft fur smother infectious, manic energy that was beginning to pool in his chest.

“Uh, Captain?” Penguin called over the transponder snail, breaking Law away from his thoughts. “We’ve got some kind of company down here with us.”

“As in something’s coming down for us?”

“As in something very big appears to be rising below us.”

Law’s eyes widened as he felt something push against the bottom of the Polar Tang, tilting the ship up and bouncing it to the side in a strange, springy motion.

“Is that a freaking _whale_?” Shachi yelped as he ran to the window to check what had hit them.

“...That’s not a whale,” Law said as he peered out the window, eyes tracking the massive bubble-coated ship as it rose beside them.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of pirates were standing on the deck, looking back at the Polar Tang with the fleeting awkwardness of two people passing in a hallway where neither of them are supposed to be. And just as quickly, the brief moment of eye contact with the Whitebeard Pirates broke as the ship continued to float past them towards the surface.

“What the hell?” Clione said, looking back and forth between Law and the window. “ _Did that just happen_?”

“I guess Whitebeard kept a ship in reserve,” Law said. “At least they didn’t assume we were enemies on sight. They really could have just blasted us out of the water.”

Back on the projector screen, Law watched the ship as it broke the surface in a grand entrance. Whitebeard’s reinforcements immediately began paddling towards the gap in the ramparts, picking up the pirates stranded in the water along the way.

“I think Oars is alive!” Shachi said, pointing at a screen on the wall.

Law squinted at the distant figure. As large as Oars Jr. was, the young projector snail had difficulty focusing on distant images. But Shachi was right. Upon regaining consciousness, the giant had managed to turn around and physically drag the entire ship over the ramparts. It was his last act before the marines turned their guns on him.

Whitebeard’s men had made it.

“Do you think they planned that?” Bepo asked.

“I’d be surprised if they did,” Law said, wondering if he had just witnessed a miracle. “We have to get closer.”

“...Why?” Shachi asked.

“There’s nothing to see. They’ve reached the land and all our Cameko snails are in the bay,” Law said impatiently. He gestured at the wall of videos, most of which showed empty water and dead bodies. If they could get close enough, he could maybe open a Room and move a snail to the battlefield. It was something he should’ve predicted happening, but given how hectic the fight was, he could maybe get away with it without giving their location.

“No! No, we’ve got a few Cameko in there!” Shachi said, pointing a frantic hand at a section of the wall.

And he was right. Somehow, a whole slew of their visual snails had managed to make it all the way to the shore and past the walls with the rest of Whitebeard’s men—along with Buggy the Clown and an honest to god camera crew.

“What are they even doing?” Clione asked.

“Straw Hat-ya’s got some pretty strange friends,” Law said, unable to muster any sort of surprise at this point.

Buggy’s camera crew was absolute crap. The Cameko panned over their captain as he monologued, mouth moving but no sound coming out. In all fairness, Law was genuinely curious what the man had to say that he deemed so important, but given all the alterations Law had made to their Proko, he’d decided against installing the audio attachments to their projector.

The Cameko that weren’t focused around Buggy were only catching glimpses of the battle, never focusing on a single subject for long as the cameramen jerked left and right.

A few Devil Fruit users who had managed to make it over the wall earlier were already deep into the fray, and now that the rest of their crew had arrived to support them, Marineford was maybe even at risk of being overrun. Now that they were all within a blade’s distance of each other, the fights became that much bloodier. The Marines may have controlled the terrain, but Whitebeard’s men were powerful and relentless, still fueled by their desire to fight to their dying breaths.

Admirals. Commanders, Warlords. There’s no shortage of future enemies they should be looking out for.

Law’s own breath caught at the flash of pink that flew across the screen.

It took him a moment to even recognize the man. His appearance hadn’t changed much, but time had a tendency to shift everything to the side. The details were all wrong, inconsistent with the image he’d committed to memory for the past decade. The man before him felt so far removed from the Doflamingo he’d known as a child that Law had trouble really registering him at all.

Doflamingo still wore the same pink feathered coat and sunglasses, but somewhere along the way, he’d lost the old suit, trading it in for a gaudy white and red shirt and a pair of even gaudier orange pants. The entire garish ensemble looks like something a retiree would wear to a resort.

His hairline was receding, Law realized. His menacing grin pulled at the edges of his cheeks a bit more than they used to. Though Doflamingo still towered over most of the other fighters at Marineford, he no longer stood as straight as he once did, either; his legs bowed at the knees with every step.

It had been eleven long years since he’d last laid eyes on the man. Appearances didn’t matter, Law reminded himself in a struggle to bridge the growing disconnect. Here he was with the grudge he’d carried for all these years, and he couldn’t assign it properly to the man before him who had earned it.

Law would finish what Cora-san had started, of course. Cora-san deserved no less than that, and Law would kill Doflamingo even if he were a decrepit old man with graying hair and wrinkled skin. As long as it took, no matter what it took, he swore to himself.

Yet, the possibility that it wouldn’t satiate Law’s resentment only fed back into his quickly darkening mood. He couldn’t even enjoy the sight of time’s toll on the man. How Doflamingo must’ve hated it. Doflamingo had been so fixated on the Ope Ope Fruit and its potential to grant him immortality, he’d been willing to sacrifice his own brother. Instead, Cora-san had sacrificed himself for Law.

The Ope Ope Fruit’s fabled ability to trade one’s life to grant eternal youth struck a chord in Law. The notion of being the deciding factor when it came to who lived and who died was a fascination Law had carried with him since he was eight years old and studying at Flevance’s esteemed medical academy. He had still been in that phase of childhood where he still believed there wasn’t anything his father couldn’t do, and that the skilled hands of a doctor could bring back anyone from the brink of death.

Then all of Flevance began to fall ill. All the neighboring countries that had turned against Flevance lived, the royal family who’d poisoned their people lived, the World Government that backed the genocide lived, while everyone else—people he’d cared about, good people who’d _deserved_ life—died, along with his beliefs.

Law remembered how despair had taken the entire country and him along with it. Faced with certain death, they fought with no other goal than to kill as many people as they could. Like the rest of his people, Law had abandoned all notions of survival and saving others.

It wasn’t until after Cora-san saved him that the feelings returned in full force. With enough medical experience and creativity, there was no injury or illness he couldn’t treat with the Ope Ope Fruit. The knowledge that a technique such as the Perpetual Youth Surgery grated at Law. If executed properly, it would cost him his life, invalidating everything Cora-san had given up for him, and so Law could only theorize how it would work. He had obsessed over the idea of trading one’s life for another. He would’ve done anything to take Cora-san’s place. He would have been satisfied living out the rest of his short life by Cora-san’s side.

Well. It was only the tightness in his chest keeping his laughter at bay as he stared at Doflamingo through the Cameko. Now, neither of them got to have what they wanted.

He hoped Doflamingo was enjoying their lives as much as Law was.

The world stopped. Marines and pirates alike froze and then collapsed to the ground without so much as a warning. Those who remained standing looked around frantically at their fallen comrades, and the camera landed on Straw Hat as he screamed into the sky.

It was Conqueror’s Haki, pulled out of the rookie pirate captain in sheer panic.

Law jolted, looking up at the platform to see Fire Fist, Sengoku, and the executioners who had crumpled under the force of Straw Hat’s unbridled Haki. They’d been about to execute Fire Fist.

For the majority of the battle, Whitebeard’s men had been on the backfoot, but Sengoku had never signaled for the executioners to drop their blades down on Fire Fist, likely out of fear of Whitebeard’s retaliation.

Drop their blades down on Fire Fist. In striking down Whitebeard’s favored commander, the Marines would have nothing to defend against Whitebeard’s furious retaliation. Whitebeard had been unable to unleash his most devastating attacks with Fire Fist in the line of fire, and the Marines had been unable to execute Fire Fist prematurely with the threat of Whitebeard’s attacks, but now, the stalemate was breaking apart.

Law glanced at the various screens and quickly found Whitebeard. He stood three times larger than the majority of the men present. Wounds that would have been fatal to a smaller man peppered his massive frame. The damage was still significant. Whitebeard was vulnerable.

Fire Fist was the linchpin keeping the chaos from turning into a full on blood bath, and this was the time to take him out.

“An opportunity has presented itself,” Law said, breaking the silence that had reigned over the Polar Tang for the past several moments.

“Captain?” As careful as Law was to speak evenly, Bepo seemed to have picked up on something in his voice, uneasily shifting his weight.

“Are you done mapping out our exit?” Law asked. Bepo nodded quietly, uncharacteristically shy. “Good. Get us closer, Jean Bart.”

The rest of his crew was sluggish on the uptake, but as Bepo quickly started putting away his maps, the movement spurred everyone into action.

Law listened to Penguin’s reports as he kept track of the distance between them and Marineford’s shore. The closer they got, the shorter the periods between his updates became. The nervous energy in the air thickened with each interval until Penguin was simply counting down the meters between them and the island.

“How close are we going to get?” Shachi asked, tensely waiting for Law to give in and tell them to stop. By now, they were all probably getting an idea of how closely Law intended to take them.

“Let’s say… thirty to forty meters.”

Shachi couldn’t even speak through all his dismay, letting out a breath that sounded like he’d been sucker punched. Even the transponder snail had grown hushed, though he heard Penguin let out a whispered, “ _Why_?”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Clione said, “but it isn’t sounding good.”

“Thirty meters is the range of his Devil Fruit abilities,” Penguin relayed to Clione and Jean Bart, voice breathless and panicky. “He wants to be in a _Room’s range to the shore_.”

Shachi was still stricken with the news. “Captain. Isn’t this a bit too much?” he whispered hoarsely.

“Have I ever led you astray?” Law asked.

Shachi’s reluctance to answer had Law a little offended. Sure, things often became hectic at the drop of a hat, but he always found them a way out when things got too far out of hand.

“What are you planning?” Jean Bart asked. He didn’t look particularly troubled by the news, but he rarely looked particularly troubled by anything.

“Don’t worry about it. Just start raising the ship and bring us closer to the surface,” Law said lightly, brushing over the question. There wasn’t much of a plan to explain. Doflamingo was here, along with countless other enemies who outclassed him. It was not only a chance to kill Doflamingo in the disarray but also to test what carrying the Will of D meant.

Was it fate dragging him forward against all odds or was it sheer luck?

“The currents are still unpredictable,” he said, his entire attention fixated on Law. “If we get too close to the island, we risk getting thrown into the rocks.”

Despite Law’s younger age, Jean Bart had always been fairly amenable when it came to following his instructions. As the newest to the crew, he had the occasional question but, in their short history, had never challenged an order, and Law considered the man’s response, trying to parse whether Jean Bart was defying his authority.

“If it’s beyond your ability,” Law said, very deliberately, “Shachi can take over for you.”

Shachi didn’t look too thrilled at the aspect but moved to relieve Jean Bart. As he approached, the larger man didn’t budge, refusing to relinquish the controls.

“It’s not my abilities I’m questioning,” Jean Bart said to Law. Shachi’s attention kept switching back and forth between the two of them. He seemed indecisive of what to do despite the orders that had been given.

“I understand the circumstances may seem daunting,” Law said, tone dripping with exaggerated patience to alert Jean Bart to the thin ice underneath him, “but I assure you, the odds of you driving us into the island are lower than the odds of my kicking you out of the Polar Tang if you don’t follow orders.”

The tension in the room ramped up. Mild-mannered Jean Bart didn’t look all that moved by the threat, but for once, his agreeable nature replaced by unbending refusal

“Issue better orders.”

Law immediately leveled a hand, fingers outstretched and ready to trade Jean Bart out for some ocean wreckage, when he was met with a discordant flood of protests from the entire sonar station and a distressed howl from Shachi.

“Captain! Isn’t throwing him into the ocean kind of taking things a little bit too far?” Shachi said, words tumbling out of his mouth as he rushed to change Law’s mind. It was ironic, considering how quick he was to suggest throwing Clione under the sub earlier, but Law wasn’t seeing much humor in the fact.

“I’m not going to tolerate mutiny,” Law said coolly.

“Fear shouldn’t be a capital offense,” Shachi said.

“I’m not frightened,” Jean Bart said, not at all flustered by the situation. Law sent Shachi a look that meant ‘I told you so’, but Shachi must have seen something else in his expression from the way he went pale and shaky. “And you’re being irrational.”

The tension in the room snapped.

Shachi, in a fit of panic, lunged forward and caught Law’s hand in a tight grip to try and stop him from using his abilities. It’s a worthless attempt; Law didn’t need accuracy to launch Jean Bart into the water. The fact that he tried only exacerbated Law’s mood.

Law had never, in all their years of traveling together, been forced to deal with insubordination from his core crew before. He glowered coldly at Shachi, waiting for his misstep to sink in.

Shachi blanched but didn’t let go, paralyzed with fear as he stared back at his captain, so Law rapped the back of his knuckles sharply with Kikoku. “Are you trying to force my hand, Shachi?”

“ _No_!” He jerked and pulled his hand back, nervously looking away as he scratched the back of his neck. “I just think… we should hear him out?” he finished weakly.

Law was still brimming with fury at Jean Bart’s earlier allegations—just because they didn’t understand the reasons behind his orders didn’t mean he was being illogical. The sting of Shachi even considering Jean Bart’s assessment nearly shocked him out of his anger, and in the brief moment it took him to recover, he wondered if Shachi was going to be a problem as well.

Penguin wouldn’t like it. Probably wouldn’t understand. Law glanced at Bepo, who was watching from across the room. As distressed as he looked, he wouldn’t act out. As for Shachi, his face slowly morphed from fearful shock to uneasy disbelief, seeing something in Law he hadn’t before.

“You and your crew must have been sailing together for a long time, if they’re so used to this kind of behavior,” Jean Bart said, and Law glared venomously at him. If there was any dissent amongst his crew, it was his fault. “But when Bepo’s nervous like this, something’s not quite right.”

“Bepo’s always nervous. He has anxiety,” Law said tersely.

“Not with you,” Jean Bart said, as if he’d been around them long enough to even tell.

Bepo didn’t say anything, but his silence only supported the point Jean Bart was trying to make. He was loyal and wouldn’t ever question Law. He was also apparently too sensitive to simply ignore Law’s bad mood. At that, Law tried not to feel a little betrayed at his inability to speak up.

“So I’m moody.”

“You’re _livid_. And you’ve been on a reckless streak since we left Sabaody. I thought maybe it was just your opportunistic personality shining through, but you’re taking this to the next level, jumping in without a plan and trying to improvise your way through Marineford.”

“I have a plan,” Law said. To stress test Cora-san’s theory of what the D in his name meant.

“Fight or die is not a plan. As captain, you dictate where the crew goes, but you have to have a direction. We can do our jobs but if you can’t do yours, we’re just delivering you to an early grave,” Jean Bart said, as if he had the moral high ground here.

“You’re telling me how to do my job?” Law snapped at him. “You were a failure of a captain. You lost your entire crew, and those who were unlucky enough to survive ended up being captured and sold off as slaves along with you.”

“Law!” Penguin shouted, though the baby Den Den Mushi was drowned out by Shachi’s, “What the _hell_ , Law?”

“Am I wrong?” Law said, his gritted teeth undercut his otherwise casually cruel tone.

“You’re not,” Jean Bart said, and even though he agreed, Law hated him even more for his placid tone and his monstrous size and the way he could throw his weight around but _didn’t_. “So take a moment to clear your head and let me know if you want to turn out the same way I did.”

It was an impossible situation, to try and sit here and argue when Jean Bart was painting him as someone who was irrational when angered. And damn him, Law was going to argue anyway because he didn’t even put up with other people telling him what to do, let alone his own crew.

“I know what I’m doing and my plans are none of your business. Your job is to do what I tell you to do,” Law said. “And if you can’t do that, then maybe I should’ve left you on Sabaody.”

“You can take me back afterward, if you’d like. I followed you because you were a better option than the Celestial Dragons, but I was under the assumption that you recruited me because I was once a pirate and a captain, not because I was a slave who’d mindlessly obey orders.”

“No one is going back to Sabaody!” Shachi interrupted. Clione cleared his throat. “This is not the time, Clione! I’m okay with stealing! And, yeah, we’ve killed people, it happens. But I’m drawing the line at slavery, so let’s pump the brakes on this conversation and think very carefully about the direction this conversation is taking! ...Law?”

Seething, Law was already heading towards the door. “You want to pump the brakes? I’m out.”

He didn’t bother listening to what Shachi had to say about that as he left, stubbornly not slamming the door behind him on the way out. Of the many frustrating parts of that conversation, the worst of it was the fact that he couldn’t defend himself without citing some fantastical story.

He’d survived the genocide of Flevance. He’d found one of the few Devil Fruits in the world that would have saved him. He’d cured himself of a fatal illness. He’d run into the one marine who turned out to be working for Doflamingo, and lost the one person in the world he would have been happy to settle down and live quietly with.

Cora-san believed in the Will of D and that he was meant for something.

And here he was, trapped in his own ship while history was being written right outside.

Law strode through the hallways with enough pent up energy to power the Polar Tang himself. He considered retreating to his quarters, but after his confrontation, it felt too much like being banished to his room after a stern lecture, and he didn’t think he could handle that without taking his anger out on _something_.

Law retreated to his operating room, deciding there he could at least distract himself from the situation, but when he arrived, he found his mood immediately worsening. In their rush to leave Sabaody, they’d forgotten to store away the equipment they’d stocked up on at Sabaody. No one had anticipated Whitebeard’s natural disaster of a Devil Fruit, and at some point along the way, probably when Jean Bart had accidentally flipped the entire ship upside down, everything ended up thrown across the room.

His mind drifted, as it had been doing as of late, to Flevance. Even before the soldiers had taken their flamethrowers to their central hospital, they’d been ravaged by desperate looters. Civilians, sick and desperate for a cure, had constantly invaded their stores, robbing them and taking everything. He remembered his father, desperately reaching out to his contacts in the surrounding countries, desperate for the most basic of necessities while the sick screamed outside the hospital gates for help.

Swearing under his breath, he kicked over an upturned box and started throwing everything that couldn’t be salvaged inside. At least the tables and most of the operating equipment were bolted down. If any of the life support equipment had been damaged, heads would roll.

Law was checking the respirators just in case when he heard someone pushing the door open. “Oh shit.”

Penguin stood in the doorway, looking incredibly guiltily at the state of the operating room. He stared at Law with shoulders hunched, looking like a turtle that wanted to do nothing more than curl up inside its shell.

“I don’t suppose you know who dropped off the supplies here?” Law asked dryly. He tried for an even, uninterested tone, but given Penguin’s hesitant expression and the earlier debacle, he didn’t succeed.

“Yeah. It was me. My bad,” Penguin lied through his teeth. His crew’s absolute disregard for his authority was really beginning to grate on Law today.

Law turned his back to Penguin again. He righted a fallen medical cart and channeled every effort into glaring at the inanimate object as he opened each drawer and inspected the state of each individual tool. Many of the surgical instruments were, of course, fine, but the delicate bottles of anesthetic and antibiotics he’d gotten were cracked, if not entirely shattered.

“It’s, um… how much do I owe you?” Penguin asked, approaching Law like he might approach the edge of a cliff.

Law had paid for them out of pocket rather than dipping into the ship’s funds so it wouldn’t affect the crew very much, and the cost of the expense was nothing he couldn’t recover from, but the sight of the broken bits of glass spilling across the surface with each sway of the ship left him feeling quietly devastated. It was an out of proportion response to something that wasn’t very significant.

He held back the urge to tell Penguin to just leave; it was just another order with no weight behind it. Law turned his back to him instead, removing the entire drawer and dumping its contents into a waste bag. “Doesn’t matter,” he said instead.

Penguin picked up an IV stand and other fallen paraphernalia. Most of the crew, at least, was familiar with how Law liked the operating room organized, and he settled in with Law, helping clear up the mess. Beyond the occasional question to confirm where something belonged, he didn’t say much. Just as Law was starting to feel thankful for the silence, he spoke up.

“Hey. Were you really gonna throw me in the freezer with Clione earlier?”

“I wouldn’t have left you in there,” Law answered honestly.

Penguin made a small noise of acknowledgement. He didn’t sound too reassured, but Law didn’t expect otherwise.

“If that’s all you wanted to know, you can leave,” Law said.

“That’s barely the tip of the iceberg,” Penguin snorted quietly, as if it was an old argument. His tone gave Law pause. His crew had never expressed any real curiosity towards Law, and he in turn never questioned their histories beyond their past work experience. There had been the occasional question, but rarely beyond the incredulous ‘who _raised_ you?’ that warranted no real response. “Do you remember Shachi’s family?”

“Vaguely,” Law said, an answer that was, in and of itself, vague. He’d never asked for the details of Penguin and Shachi’s childhoods, but from his time living on their island, he knew more than they’d ever told him.

“When we first came to live with his aunt and uncle, they treated us alright. It wasn’t great, but they put a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs,” Penguin said. But they didn’t put food on their plates. Law remembered finding the two of them in the woods, arm severed and stomach gored open by a board they’d been desperate enough to hunt. Stumbling upon their crumpled bodies had been an act of providence. “Things just slowly got worse. We’d look back and think, ‘things used to be better than this’. But it never changed to a point where it was so drastic that it felt unnatural.”

Law did meet the aunt and uncle, eventually. At the time, he’d wondered how Penguin and Shachi had put up with that kind of treatment for so long. It had only taken a single encounter to see them for the bitter, awful people they were, easily angered and prone to taking it out on them.

“You’re comparing me to those assholes?” he scowled.

“ _No_. No, just… we always knew what kind of person you were. You like to push things just to see them fall, and when you’re pissed, you push harder,” Penguin said. “It all seemed normal and, honestly, kind of funny when it wasn’t us you were messing with. I guess Jean Bart was right. We have been around you for way too long.”

His knee jerk fury as yet another longtime crewmate confirmed he was taking Jean Bart’s side was almost instantly replaced with a surge of numbness. “So leave.”

“Don’t be like that,” he said lightly, though there was a contrite note to his voice. “I’m trying to apologize here.”

Law didn’t respond, unsure of what he was apologizing for. Penguin, at least, seemed completely unaware of how Law had misread the conversation—or was just courteous enough to overlook it. Law ducked his face as he closed the last of the drawers on the cart.

“You never came across as the type of person who ever lost control of your temper, but I didn’t realize how little your attitude changed when you’re upset. We’ve been together so long, it just seemed like you were being cranky or strict,” Penguin said.

“You don’t come across as the type of person who’d lost control of your temper. You get cranky and impatient, but in all the time we’ve traveled together, you’ve never had an outburst. It’s been so long, and I guess I never realized just how little your attitude changed when you get upset. Didn’t notice when you _got_ upset,” Penguin said apologetically, as if his temperament was the root of all his problems. Whitebeard was dying, and Law’s crew had just threatened mutiny against him. There was a much greater issue at hand than Law’s bad mood. He reached under the flap of his hat, scratching at his scalp as he hesitated, but he eventually asked, “Are you okay?”

The question shouldn’t have surprised Law, but he faltered coming up with a response. He was fine, but he couldn’t say it. Any attempt to brush him off would have Penguin believing otherwise, but there was nothing for him to say.

He wished he hadn’t turned his back to Penguin, reminded of Cora-san crying over him while he thought Law was sleeping. The man had never asked Law such an insipid question. He hadn’t been okay. He’d been sick and dying. The situation here felt so laughably tame in comparison to his childhood, but Law couldn’t muster a trace of his usual bad humor.

As the silence grew uncomfortable long and it became apparent that Penguin wasn’t going to let up and change the subject, Law turned to face him, hawkishly watching his reaction.

“I’ve been waiting for something. A sign, maybe. Or even a miracle,” Law eventually said. Between Straw Hat Luffy, Fire Fist Ace, Garp the Hero of the Marines, and Law, there were carriers of the Will of D in a single location, and so far, there’d been nothing he would’ve considered a storm. “Someone once told me no matter dark things seem, a merciful hand will reach out and bring salvation.”

Penguin nodded slowly, and Law had to wonder how much effort he was putting into not looking dubious. “I never took you for the spiritual type,” he said, careful not to offend Law’s nonexistent religious sensibilities.

“I decided religion wasn’t for me after she and all the other kids in the congregation were almost immediately gunned down. God didn’t come for them.”

They didn’t even make it past the bridge by the time he’d returned. If there was an all-merciful savior reaching out for them, they didn’t reach far enough.

Sister Petra looked almost peaceful where she laid on the ground, as if her hands were pressed together in prayer, but up close, he could see the trails in the ground where her nails had clawed through the dirt. They never made it past the bridge. If there was an all merciful savior, it never reached for them.

“I’m sorry,” Penguin said. Despite having pressed so hard for this in the first place, Penguin didn’t look at all prepared for the weight of the conversation.

“I was saved, but it wasn’t very merciful,” Law said. He still recalled how it felt to reach out, searching for help as Flevance burned, only to find no one was there. He’d been the only survivor. He flexed his hand, watching the way his skin grew taut around his knuckles. The DEATH inked into his skin was a permanent reminder of his muddled beliefs.

“You think you were… chosen for something?” he guessed.

He sounded a little uncertain, perhaps unsure if he was piecing Law’s admittedly scarce story together properly. Or maybe he was wondering if he had been following some religious nutjob for the past decade.

“I _was_ chosen for something,” Law said. Whether Cora-san had just been a superstitious man who’d heard his name and picked him out of Doflamingo’s collection of sad children or an unseen hand had guided Law alone out of Flevance and away from Doflamingo, someone or something _had_ chosen him. Law wasn’t sure if he cared which it was. If Cora-san saved him, believing he was fated to turn the world up on its head, he would do it.

“This is a lot to digest,” Penguin said faintly.

“I’m not crazy,” Law said, though there wasn’t much conviction behind it. The last thing he needed was for his crew to believe he was touched in the head, but he felt too hollowed out to care about Penguin’s opinion right now.

“Yeah, you are,” Penguin mumbled into his hands. “You’re obsessed with watching people die. You pick fights with android Warlords. You’ve waged war against one of the biggest crews in the North Blue, and in the end, you decided that all you wanted out of that shitshow was their captain’s sword.”

“Kikoku was worth it,” Law said defensively.

“Kikoku is _cursed_ ,” he said, exasperated with the old argument. “You stole a _cursed sword_ because that’s better than money, I guess. And we’re chasing after a treasure that might not even exist.”

“You knew I intended to find One Piece before we ever even set sail. That’s not news,” Law said.

“I know,” Penguin said. “I’m still processing this entire conversation, but if you think you’re chosen by some god or something, fine. Whatever. We wouldn’t be following you if we didn’t think you were meant for something, too. But if that’s why you were raring to fight, then brace yourself because I’m about to say it again: Jean Bart was right. We need direction, and if you don’t provide it, then you’re not doing your job as a captain. We can’t just just run in without a plan and expect to win.”

“I think you’re being very optimistic if you think there’s any outcome we can plan for in which we win. At this point, I just want the World Government to lose,” Law said with a touch more bitterness than he intended. He had plans—handfuls of half formed schemes he’d resorted to in the past and dozens more that he’d never found a place for—but nothing fit together coherently enough to commit to. Frankly, the more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became. What was a plan in the face of sheer overwhelming power?

Penguin, on the other hand, only grew thoughtful. “Doesn’t that just make it easier? Setting someone up for failure?”

Law could see what Penguin was getting at, but it didn’t seem as simple as he was making it out to be. “Whitebeard’s dying,” he said. “He’s not winning this war.”

“It might be Whitebeard fighting, but it’s not him the World Government wants to kill. It’s Ace. Maybe there’s no way you can change the tides of battle, but,” Penguin gestured at the operating room around them, “saving people is something you can do better than anyone here, isn’t it?”

Law had his doubts—there were injuries beyond even his ability to heal—but his mind drifted back to the time when faith had just been an exercise proving how painful it was to hold onto hope. He’d refused to believe in anything, so certain that no one would come to save him that he stopped reaching out. Cora-san had found him and taken his hand anyway.

He grazed the tattoos on the back of his fingers as he considered Penguin’s suggestion. Law had come to Marineford out of anger, losses from a decade prior made fresh once again as he watched desperate men fight to their deaths.

It was only appropriate, he realized, that he should reach out and take someone else’s hand in turn.

* * *

The Polar Tang shook and trembled as Aokiji’s ice and Kizaru’s beams of light plunged into the sea after them. Law didn’t let the threat of being sent sinking to the bottom of the ocean bother him. Some of his best work was performed under life-threatening pressure.

He was still in the process of stabilizing Straw Hat Luffy when he stepped away from the operation.

“Captain?”

“Take care of Straw Hat,” Law said to Shachi.

“But the operation—”

“There’s no mistake you can make that I can’t fix,” Law said. “Fire Fist-ya’s situation is time-sensitive.”

He could see Shachi’s brain still trying to process the dead elephant in the room. Ace had taken on more damage than a human body could survive, but Law still had one last idea to fall back on.

“He’s dead,” Shachi said. “Can you even save him?”

“We’ll see,” Law smiled. “I’ve never performed this kind of operation before.”


End file.
